A Deployable Four-Finger Payload for Teleoperated Free-Flying Manipulation with Astrobee

Abstract:This article presents a bimanual teleoperation pipeline and conceptual design of a deployable four-finger payload for intra-vehicular free-flyers. Future habitats in low-Earth orbit (LEO) will require systems to perform mundane tasks like cargo handling and maintenance during crewed and uncrewed periods. The gripper payload provides 17 manipulation degrees-of-freedom (DoF) through four independently actuated fingers on a linear rail system. To control it, a virtual reality (VR) device interface maps the human ground operator's hand motions to the finger pairs, their separation to the rail, and common wrist motion to Astrobee translation. We present the preliminary results of teleoperating Astrobee in a custom zero-gravity MuJoCo-based International Space Station (ISS) simulator through ten repeated trials of transporting a rigid ISS Cargo Transfer Bag (CTB). We measure task success, continuous contact retention, completion time, and cargo motion.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2609.25614 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2609.25614v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.25614 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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