Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Oct 9:11:1470950.
doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1470950. eCollection 2024.

A comprehensive survey of space robotic manipulators for on-orbit servicing

Mohammad Alizadeh  1 , Zheng H Zhu  1
Affiliations
Review

A comprehensive survey of space robotic manipulators for on-orbit servicing

Mohammad Alizadeh et al. Front Robot AI. .

Abstract

On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) robots are transforming space exploration by enabling vital maintenance and repair of spacecraft directly in space. However, achieving precise and safe manipulation in microgravity necessitates overcoming significant challenges. This survey delves into four crucial areas essential for successful OOS manipulation: object state estimation, motion planning, and feedback control. Techniques from traditional vision to advanced X-ray and neural network methods are explored for object state estimation. Strategies for fuel-optimized trajectories, docking maneuvers, and collision avoidance are examined in motion planning. The survey also explores control methods for various scenarios, including cooperative manipulation and handling uncertainties, in feedback control. Additionally, this survey examines how Machine learning techniques can further propel OOS robots towards more complex and delicate tasks in space.

Keywords: control; machine learning; motion planning; on-orbit servicing; pose estimation; robotic manipulator; space robots.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
On-orbit satellite servicing market by service. (Mate and Katare, 2024).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Model of a Soviet Lunokhod program rover. (Credit: Milošević, 2023).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Ingenuity: an autonomous NASA helicopter operated on Mars from 2021 to 2024 (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2023).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
A conceptual illustration of Canadarm3’s robotic arm aboard the Lunar Gateway. (Canadian Space Agency, 2024).
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
An artistic depiction of OSAM-1 docking with a satellite. (Landsat Science, 2022).
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
On-orbit service or repair process (Choudhary, 2018).
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
(A) Illustration of GIMLI mounted on a KUKA robotic arm. (ESA, 2024). (B) Image o f NASA Rendezvous Docking Simulator. (NASA, 2024) (C) Image of SPHERES aboard ISS (MIT Space Systems Laboratory, 2024). (D) A sample simulation scenario featuring Earth in the background. (DLR, 2024). (E) 6DOF Hardware-in-The-Loop Testbed for Autonomous Robotic OOS (Al Ali and Zhu, 2023). (F) Autonomous Spacecraft Testing of Robotic Operations in Space (ASTROS) (Dynamic and Control Systems Laboratory, 2024). (G) ADAMUS testbed (Saulnier et al., 2014). (H) GMV’s platform-art© advanced robotics laboratory (GMV, 2022). (I) Impage of 6-DOF spacecraft simulators at Caltech’s Aerospace Robotics and Control Laboratory (Nakka et al., 2018). (J) AUDASS II vehicle (Tracy, 2005). (K) Maneuver kinematics and dynamics testbed (Florida Tech, 2024). (L) Planar air-bearing microgravity simulator (Rybus et al., 2013). (M) ZeroG lab facility at University of Luxembourg (Muralidharan et al., 2022).
FIGURE 8
FIGURE 8
Biris range scanner on the end-effector of a CRS A465 6-DOF articulated manipulator. (Greenspan and Yurick, 2003).
FIGURE 9
FIGURE 9
Two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional high-resolution intensity data acquired by the LCS in orbit (Samson et al., 2004).
FIGURE 10
FIGURE 10
A Neptec laser rangefinder scanner captures the pose of a satellite mockup, operated by a manipulator arm controlled through a simulator based on orbital dynamics. (Aghili and Su, 2016).
FIGURE 11
FIGURE 11
A spacecraft bounding box detection by LSPnet. (Garcia et al., 2021).
FIGURE 12
FIGURE 12
Concept of the chaser satellite captured the tumbling satellite (Ma et al., 2007).
FIGURE 13
FIGURE 13
Two manipulator arms mimic satellite motion and autonomously capture the mockup satellite using SARAH (Laliberte and Gosselin, 2001) robotic hand (Aghili, 2012).
FIGURE 14
FIGURE 14
Phases of capturing a tumbling targe (Hirano et al., 2017).
FIGURE 15
FIGURE 15
Satellite capture experiment with a nozzle cone (Yoshida et al., 2004).
FIGURE 16
FIGURE 16
Hardware simulator using realistic pictures to evaluate the trained model (Hirano et al., 2018b).
FIGURE 17
FIGURE 17
Air-bearing microgravity testbed for autonomous spacecraft rendezvous and robotic capture at York University space Engineering lab (Santaguida and Zhu, 2023).
FIGURE 18
FIGURE 18
Spacecraft proximity operation testbed at Carleton University. (Ulrich and Hovell, 2017).
FIGURE 19
FIGURE 19
Schematic diagram of (A) single arm robot, (B) double arm robot (Wu et al., 2020).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abiko S., Lampariello R., Hirzinger G. (2006). “Impedance control for a free-floating robot in the grasping of a tumbling target with parameter uncertainty,” in 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Beijing, China, 09–15 October, 2006.
    1. Abiko S., Yoshida K. (2010). Adaptive reaction control for space robotic applications with dynamic model uncertainty. Adv. Robot. 24, 1099–1126. 10.1163/016918610X501264 - DOI
    1. Aghili F. (2000). “On-orbit calibration of the SPDM force-moment sensor,” in Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065), San Francisco, CA, USA, 24–28 April, 2000.
    1. Aghili F. (2008). “Optimal control for robotic capturing and passivation of a tumbling satellite with unknown dynamics,” in AIAA guidance, navigation and control conference and exhibit (Reston, Virigina: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; ). 10.2514/6.2008-7274 - DOI
    1. Aghili F. (2009). “Optimal control of a space manipulator for detumbling of a target satellite,” in 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Kobe, Japan, 12–17 May, 2009.

LinkOut - more resources