Experiments of a space robot in free-fall microgravity --experimental methods and visual measurement in a small space

摘要

We propose an experimental system of a space robot in the microgravity environment at the Japan Microgravity Center (JAMIC). At the JAMIC, free-falling of the drop capsule with experimental setups on board generates the microgravity environment, as accurate as 10{sup}(-5)[G], for about 10 seconds. We developed an experimental setup for visual feedback control of a space robot capturing a target. To measure the position of the target and the motion of the robot, two CCD cameras are used and their images are processed by the tracking vision (TRV). For the precise measurement, we make use of not only dual images from the cameras but apriori knowledgement of geometry of marks on the robot. After the introduction of the experimental system, we establish two computational methods to identify the 3D position and orientation of the robot base. The experiments and their results follow to evaluate the proposed methods.