Abstract
Space-debris removal mission which is imperative but dangerous strongly requires unmanned space robot. One of the biggest issues of the development of such space robot is a target capture technology. Plate-structures like solar array paddles are good candidates as grapple fixture on the debris. However, capture of such plate-structure is difficult because of its flexibility and fragility. The authors proposes a novel gripper system for the large plate-structure. The gripper can grasp the plane structure by plane-shaped fingers using shear adhesive like a gecko without load concentration. The fingers are driven by one actuator and have an anti-back-drive structure. The grasping force is maintained after the actuator servo-off. In this paper, the overview and evaluation of the gripper BBM is discussed.
