Ground Experiment for Capturing Rotating Satellite in 3D Space Using an Orbit Maintenance Vehicle

Abstract

An orbit maintenance system equipped with a robot is expected to rescue satellites enabling their life spans to be prolonged and suppressing the amount of space debris. We are studying a system that is capable of the assembly, capture, diagnosis and repair of small satellites in orbit. A ground model of the orbit maintenance vehicle, which is equipped with a pair of robot arms, has been developed for these studies. In this paper, we describe a ground experiment for capturing an uncontrollably rotating satellite using the robot. The capture experiments were performed in sensor-dased autonomous control mode. We demonstrated that the vehicle flies toward the satellite, which is rotating in a test facility simulating 3-dimensional space, by measuring the relative position and attitude through image processing of a target marker, and then captures the handrail of the satellite with a hand having an adaptive mechanism by means of predictive visual servo tracking of the robot arm.