SPACE ROBOTICS

INRODUCTION Space robotics is the development of general purpose machines that are capable of surviving (for a time, atleast) the rigors of the space environment, and performing exploration, assembly, construction, maintenance, servicing or other tasks that may or may not have been fully understood at the time of the design of the robot . Humans control space robots from either a local control console as in the case of the Space Shuttle robot arm controlled by astronauts inside the pressurized cabin or remotely, as in the case of the Mars Exploration Rovers controlled from human operators on Earth. IMPORTANCE OF SPACE ROBOTS Space robots are important to our overall ability to operate in space because they can perform tasks less expensively or on an accelerated schedule, with less risk and occasionally with improved performance over humans doing the same tasks.They operate for long durations, often asleep for long periods before their operational mission begins. They can be sent into situations that are so risky that humans would not be allowed to go. Indeed, every space robot mission beyond Earth orbit has been a suicide mission in that the robot is left in place when it stops operating, since the cost of return-to-Earth is (literally) astronomical (and that cost would be better spent in return of scientific samples in almost every case) .Missions to distant targets such as Titan (a moon of Saturn thought to have liquid methane lakes or rivers) presently require a substantial fraction of a human lifetime during the transit from Earth to the destination. Access to space is expensive (currently about $10,000 for every kilogram lofted into Low Earth Orbit (LEO)), implying that, for certain jobs, robots that are smaller than a human and require much less infrastructure (e.g. life support) makes them very attractive for broad classes of missions. ROBOT TECHNOLOGY TODAY The space robotic technology of today is developed and designed by many companies and organizations. Some of the more well known, and noted are NASA, JPL, ETL, and ARL. The overall objective of many of these programs is to advance the state of the art technology used in space and planetary rovers(vehicles designed to move across the surface of planets). The expected benefits are to enable increased rover productivity and scientific knowledge, without risking the rover's safety. A concept

that many want to incorporate into rovers in the near future is "contingent command sequence" into rover flight operations. This will by far advance rovers by great standards compared to what they are today, they would basically be able to think for themselves in almost any given situation. Other new discoveries and innovations in robotics are things like "ARH," Advance Robotic Hand system. These systems are capable of performing tasks that in the past only humans could do. The reason is that, someone that can be safely located away from the area and can control the ARH using cameras and remote sensors. Stanford University contributes a lot to space robotics. The Aerospace Robotics Laboratory, "ARL" has a state of the art research program in free-flying space robotics. The ARL has developed such technologies that can do great tasks, in a free floating, zero-drag environment. The Robots are capable of, object acquisition and manipulation, and docking of massive objects. The Robots are currently being tested and designed to work in a more unstructured environment. The research at ARL is focused on developing the capabilities of individual robots performing complex extended tasks, and work as teams to perform tasks that would be impossible for a single robot. Sensory, control and cooperative behavior are all a great deal of importance to space robotics. "Super-Long Distance Space Telerobotics," is something that both Japan and the U.S. are experimenting with. Super-Long Distance Space Telerobotics is being able to communicate with and operate robots in other countries or in outer space,

using the Internet and ISDN. The U.S. and Japan, although working together have different opinions about the future of robotics. "Technologies of
intelligent monitoring, object handling knowledge and man-robot cooperative control are emphasized by the Japanese. While technologies of distributed space telerobtics are emphasized by the U.S other proposed, and experimental robot designs have been things like "Smart Cranes." These cranes would have "smart end effectors," on them, these would allow for a more dexterous crane that could perform smoother and manipulative tasks on command modules or space centers in outer space. FAMOUS ROBOTS The best-known robot is Sojourner, mainly because it was the first and currently the only rover to travel the Martian surface. Sojourner was launched from Earth December 4, 1996, and landed on Mars July 4, 1997. Sojourner had a weight of about 23 pounds. It carried an Alpha Proton X-ray spectrometer, and three cameras. While on Mars Sojourner out lived its projected expectancy by 12 times.

From the time it landed to till its final data transmission on September 27, 1997, the path finder returned 2.3 billion bits of information, 17,050 images, 550 that came from Sojourner. It also returned 15 chemical analyses of rocks and soil and data on winds and other weather factors. Another famous robot, that was before Sojourner's time was NASA's Galileo. Galileo was an un-piloted space probe that traveled to Jupiter in 1996 and performed tasks such as determining the chemical content of the Jovian Atmosphere. Next famous was Robonaut is a dexterous humanoid robot built and designed at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Its challenge is to build machines that can help humans work and explore in space. Working side by side with humans, or going where the risks are too great for people, Robonauts will expand the ability for construction One advantage of a humanoid design is that Robonaut can take over simple, repetitive, or especially dangerous tasks on places such as the International Space Station. Because R2 is approaching human dexterity, tasks such as changing out an air filter can be performed without modifications to the existing design. FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS ON ROVERS In the future to be able to explore planets further, rovers will have to be able to go further and move faster. One idea that is being used for rovers of the future is inflatable rovers. These rovers would use very large inflatable wheels to climb over rocks, instead of going around them which would allow for further and faster travel. It may also be possible for future rovers to have shoulders that they can move to duck under objects, and radar to detect the presence of water and other resources. The future rovers are also going to be smarter. They will be able to adjust to terrain. Eventually there will be teams of robots that will work together to form the groundwork, and the basis for human visits. CONCLUSION Future trends in Space Robotics are expected to lead to planetary rovers that can operate many days without commands, and can approach and analyze science targets from a substantial distance with only a single command, and robots that can assemble/construct, maintain, and service space hardware using very precise force control, dexterous hands, despite multi-second time delay.