A Bolt Tool with Visual Perception and Tolerance Capabilities for On-Orbit Autonomous Maintenance
Year: 2026
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: To reduce the risk of astronauts performing extravehicular on-orbit maintenance operations and improve the efficiency of on-orbit maintenance, this paper focuses on the bolt tightening and loosening tasks during on-orbit maintenance operations, and proposes a bolt tool with visual perception and tolerance capabilities for on-orbit autonomous maintenance. The tool integrates visual sensors, which can compensate for the blind area of the robotic arm’s wrist camera and provide key information for bolt pose estimation; it also has a certain tolerance capacity, allowing for a certain degree of pose estimation error, and can adapt to bolts of multiple sizes ranging from M4 to M10. In terms of positioning strategy, the method of “segmentation first, then pose estimation” is adopted to ensure accurate positioning of the tool. Tests were conducted using the modular joint of the space station robotic arm as the experimental object, and the results show that both the visual perception and tolerance performance of the bolt tool meet the requirements of on-orbit maintenance tasks. The pose estimation strategy adopted in this paper not only conforms to the tolerance characteristics of the tool but also realizes effective adaptation to bolts of different sizes, providing reliable technical support for on-orbit autonomous maintenance operations.
DOI: 10.3233/atde260628
Authors: Penghao Zhang, Chuangqiang Guo, Ye Deng
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7203742200