Demonstration of an Astronaut Support Robot on the International Space Station Japanese Experiment Module (ISS/JEM)
- Paper number
IAC-08.B3.6.7
- Author
Dr. Mitsushige Oda, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan
- Year
2008
- Abstract
Humankind’s activities of the space utilization and the space explorations will surely expand year by year. Size of space systems to be launched into space and to the other planets will increase. Number of astronauts and civil passengers who travel space will increase. The international space station is being built now. After assembly of the space station is completed, who will maintain the space station? Who will build and maintain the proposed moon base? Who will build the proposed solar power satellite? Astronauts or robots might be partly correct answer for these questions. However more suitable answer would be astronauts and robots. Astronauts will conduct some dexterous tasks and the robots will conduct standardized routine tasks and some dangerous tasks. Robots will relief workload of astronauts and risk of encountering hazard. These kinds of robots which will work with / for astronauts can be called the astronauts support robots. Japanese Experimental Module (JEM) will be attached to the international space station this year. Utilization of the JEM is planned three years interval. Missions to be conducted in the first three years are already defined and their experimental equipments will be launched soon. Missions of the second three years period are being considered now. A domestic RFP to seek proposals of missions to be conducted on JEM was issued in the year 2006. An experiment to demonstrate an astronaut support robot was proposed in response to the RFP and was selected as one of the missions to be conducted in the second three year period of JEM. The proposed mission was to walk along the surface of JEM using tethers. Tethers are attached to the handrails on the space station using robot’s extendable arm and the tether’s hook mechanism. Number of tethers needed to control location of the robot is at least four. When the robot can unlock the tether’s hook and re-locate the tether’s hook to other handrail, then the area that the robot can move can be re-configured. Shape of the robot would be a layered pane cake style. One layer houses tethers and the other layer houses the extendable robot arm. It should be mentioned that the redundancy or additional functions of the robot’s capability is easily added by adding the layers of the pane cake. For example, additional layer that housed manipulation arm can be easily added to this robot. This experiment will be conducted in the year 2011 and currently the phase-B work is in progress.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-08.B3.6.7.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.