Space robotics supporting exploration missions: Vision, force control and coordination strategy for crew assistants

Many research activities are being carried out about space exploration missions, in order to strongly improve man's working conditions in planetary environments. Along this line, this work presents some results obtained within the development of an effective robotic crew assistant. This robot can execute a number of operations, both in a completely autonomous manner (i. e. without requiring human supervision) and in a strict cooperation with the astronauts; thus supporting and helping them in executing operations otherwise very difficult or unfeasible to be accomplished. The developed and then adopted functional and algorithmic control architecture for the considered robot assistant, also including vision and force feedback, is described with some details in the present paper. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.