Automated rendezvous and capture at NASA/MSFC

Robotic Manipulation and Capture in Space: A Survey

“…Again, due to high uncertainties in contact dynamics modeling and simulations, space agencies across the world developed various hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation facilities to test and verify critical contact operations of space robotic systems before they are launched into space. NASA/MSFC first developed an HIL simulation facility to test Space Shuttle docking or berthing to ISS ( Tobbe et al, 1991 ). Canadian Space Agency (CSA) developed SPDM Task Verification Facility (STVF) to test ISS robot SPDM critical contact operations ( Piedboeuf et al, 1999 ; Ma et al, 2004 ; Aghili, 2019 ).…”

“…Space agencies have built sophisticated testbed facilities for verification and validation of on-orbit contact tasks through implementation of HIL simulation technology using robotic manipulators capable of operating in 1-G laboratory environment. The earliest HIL simulation facility was built to investigate the berthing of a Space Shuttle onto ISS by the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (Canadarm) ( Tobbe et al, 1991 ). It followed by development of the SPDM Task Verification Facility (STVF) at CSA to verify dexterous tasks to be performed by SPDM on the ISS ( Aghili and Piedboeuf, 2000 ; Ma et al, 2004 ; Aghili and Piedboeuf, 2006 ; Aghili, 2019 ); see Figure 6A .…”