Architecture and design for system of reconfigurable brachiating space robot

Abstract

This paper presents a system architecture and design of Reconfigurable Brachiating space Robots (RBR). The RBR consists of a center hub and three 6 degree-of-freedom arms with an end-effector and a pivot, which has a reconfigurable mechanism, for each arm. This space robot is capable of moving over the Japanese Experimental Module Kibou of the International Space Station in a brachiating manner and also of reconfigurati ng according to the various task requirements. This paper explains the system structure of RBR, mainly, modular joint, multi-function end-effector, arm module and the docking element in detail. We describe about the cable reduction technique with the distributed controllers and the communications system of the RBR. In addition, we report some results of on-ground experiments as well as parabolic flight microgarvity experiment.