VALIDATION PROCESS OF THE STVF HARDWARE-IN-THE-LOOP SIMULATION FACILITY

Abstract

As a partner in the International Space Station (ISS), Canada is responsible for the verification of all tasks involving Dextre, also known as the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator (SPDM). Those verifications cannot be performed using only software simulators since the accuracy of current contact dynamic models are yet to be confirmed. Instead, a solution involving hardware-in-the-loop simulation was retained. With this option, the space hardware is simulated while the contact dynamics is emulated using a rigid robot performing the tasks. Using this approach, the Canadian Space Agency developed the SPDM Task and Verification Facility (STVF). The approach suggested to validate STVF is based on first building confidence by comparing experimental results with pure simulation results for cases easy to model. Then, the complexity of the experimentations is increased. Preliminary test results presented in this paper show that STVF is performing well.