Recent developments at the Goddard Engineering Test Bed

Abstract

Work on the Flight Telerobotic Service (FTS) since that reported in Leake (1991) is examined, and initial work on a Hubble servicing mission is outlined. A state-of-the-art force reflecting teleoperation system that uses torque control at the joints of the slave manipulator has been implemented. The master rate/slave damper mode proposed by Langley has proved to be a very efficient operational mode, allowing force reflection ratios up to one to one. A software architecture for real-time Ada robotics systems has been proposed, and implementation has been launched. This architecture builds on the lessons learned from NASA Standard Reference Model Architecture and the prototype FTS effort. The Capaciflector sensor has been integrated into the system, and it has been used to perform a basic berthing task autonomously.