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Hybrid Reactionless manipulation and visual servoing of space platform

Research Project

Project Guide - Dr. Suril V Shah, Mechanical Dept. IIT Jodhpur

Team Members - Naveen B, Sridhar Sidhu, Anirvan Dutta, A V Gopal

This is the ongoing project at IIT Jodhpur. The idea behind the project is to develop a platform and setup that can mimic space scenarios and perform "Autonomous On-orbit services" with the help of the developed hardware prototype of satellite mounted robot. Robotics in space is considered a challenging domain as one has to consider various environment and  design constraints.

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In space robots, coupling between the base and the arms causes the floating base to translate and rotate when the arms execute a maneuver, which is typically not seen in earth based robots. Since it is difficult to test developments in space robotics primarily due to the high cost and lack of access to robots in space, it is necessary to have physical systems that can mimic space conditions for experimental validation on earth. The current design consists of air bearings to build floating-base robots to replicate zero gravity condition for planar robot.

The project is in its initial stage. The problem of control and planning becomes increasingly difficult due to dynamic coupling of the manipulator(dual arms attached to the platform) and the platform. Any motion of the manipulator will cause a reaction motion in the platform. A lot of dynamic factors have to be included in the robot motion planning and control, thus making it an interesting problem. Currently, we addressing few of the following problems and tasks -

  • Dynamic parameter estimation

  • Visual Servoing based manipulation of objects using dual arm articulate links involving model predictive control.

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