by Lucy Jackson, Chakravarthini M Saaj, Asma Seddaoui, Calem Whiting, Steve Eckersley and Simon Hadfield
Abstract:
Small space robots have the potential to revolutionise space exploration by facilitating the on-orbit assembly of infrastructure, in shorter time scales, at reduced costs. Their commercial appeal will be further improved if such a system is also capable of performing on-orbit servicing missions, in line with the current drive to limit space debris and prolong the lifetime of satellites already in orbit. Whilst there have been a limited number of successful demonstrations of technologies capable of these on-orbit operations, the systems remain large and bespoke. The recent surge in small satellite technologies is changing the economics of space and in the near future, downsizing a space robot might become be a viable option with a host of benefits. This industry wide shift means some of the technologies for use with a downsized space robot, such as power and communication subsystems, now exist. However, there are still dynamic and control issues that need to be overcome before a downsized space robot can be capable of undertaking useful missions. This paper first outlines these issues, before analyzing the effect of downsizing a system on its operational capability. Therefore presenting the smallest controllable system such that the benefits of a small space robot can be achieved with current technologies. The sizing of the base spacecraft and manipulator are addressed here. The design presented consists of a 3 link, 6 degrees of freedom robotic manipulator mounted on a 12U form factor satellite. The feasibility of this 12U space robot was evaluated in simulation and the in-depth results presented here support the hypothesis that a small space robot is a viable solution for in-orbit operations.
Reference:
Downsizing an orbital space robot: A dynamic system based evaluation (Lucy Jackson, Chakravarthini M Saaj, Asma Seddaoui, Calem Whiting, Steve Eckersley and Simon Hadfield), In Advances in Space Research, Elsevier, 2020.
Bibtex Entry:
@article{Jackson20,
title={Downsizing an orbital space robot: A dynamic system based evaluation},
author={Lucy Jackson and Chakravarthini M Saaj and Asma Seddaoui and Calem Whiting and Steve Eckersley and Simon Hadfield},
journal={Advances in Space Research},
Booktitle = {Advances in Space Research},
year={2020},
publisher={Elsevier},
Url = {http://personalpages.surrey.ac.uk/s.hadfield/papers/Jackson20.pdf},
Abstract = {Small space robots have the potential to revolutionise space exploration by facilitating the on-orbit assembly of infrastructure, in shorter time scales, at reduced costs. Their commercial appeal will be further improved if such a system is also capable of performing on-orbit servicing missions, in line with the current drive to limit space debris and prolong the lifetime of satellites already in orbit. Whilst there have been a limited number of successful demonstrations of technologies capable of these on-orbit operations, the systems remain large and bespoke. The recent surge in small satellite technologies is changing the economics of space and in the near future, downsizing a space robot might become be a viable option with a host of benefits. This industry wide shift means some of the technologies for use with a downsized space robot, such as power and communication subsystems, now exist. However, there are still dynamic and control issues that need to be overcome before a downsized space robot can be capable of undertaking useful missions. This paper first outlines these issues, before analyzing the effect of downsizing a system on its operational capability. Therefore presenting the smallest controllable system such that the benefits of a small space robot can be achieved with current technologies. The sizing of the base spacecraft and manipulator are addressed here. The design presented consists of a 3 link, 6 degrees of freedom robotic manipulator mounted on a 12U form factor satellite. The feasibility of this 12U space robot was evaluated in simulation and the in-depth results presented here support the hypothesis that a small space robot is a viable solution for in-orbit operations.},
% Comment = {<a href="https://youtu.be/VisZLaZyblE?t=3457">Recorded presentation</a>, <a href="https://github.com/neccam/text2gloss">text2gloss code</a>},
Doi = {10.1016/j.asr.2020.03.004},
}