Micro-gravity Experiments of Space Robotics and Space-Used Mechanisms at Tokyo Institute of Technology

Abstract

Technical issues for micro-gravity experiments of space robotics and space-used mechanisms are discussed in this article and some examples mainly conducted at Tokyo Institute of Technology are introduced. One example is a micro-gravity flight experiment of the Reconfigurable Brachiating space Robot (RBR) developed at Tokyo Institute of Technology. The RBR model used in the flight has 4 degree-of-freedom and an end-effector. The airplane (MU300) generates micro-gravity environment for about 20 seconds in parabolic flight operation. The other example is a free-fall type micro-gravity experiment of the docking mechanism developed for small mothership-daughtership satellite. The free-fall experiment was conducted by using the facility of Japan Micro Gravity Center ( JAMIC), and a drop capsule generates micro-gravity environment for about 10 seconds. In this article, overviews and brief results of these experiments are reported.