The Simulated Micro-Gravity Experiment of the Intra-Vehicular Legged Mobile Robot for ISS Automation

Abstract

Intra-Vehicular Robots (IVR) are expected to enhance automation and facilitation, assisting astronauts in on-orbit stations such as International Space Station (ISS) or a commercial space station. Cargo manipulation and transportation are representative tasks that IVR is expected to perform instead of human astronauts. Cargo transportation under micro-gravity requires mobility and fixation of the robot’s base, which is hard for free-flyer robots already working in ISS. In this paper, we present the robot prototype of IVR to execute cargo transportation inside ISS. The robot prototype (scaled-down sized) has legs and grippers to grasp the hardware interfaces installed in ISS: seat tracks or handrails. The concept of stable rail-gripping movement is demonstrated under the simulated micro-gravity experiments by the air-floating testbed.