TOPOLOGICAL TASK SPACE MODELING FOR PLANNING AUTONOMOUS SPACE ROBOT ACTIONS

Future space robot generations will replace astronauts in deep space m issions and routine operations. They will use tools, and perform assem bly, disassembly and handling tasks for maintenance purposes. A key fe ature of autonomous, task-level commandable robots is a valid and comp lete representation of an application's task space for planning and op timizing a rough action sequence facing a sensorially classified situa tion. This paper shows such a representation for a robot-based automat ed material science experiment set-up. It proposes a method of analysi s by which a valid and complete task space model can be obtained. Resu lts of practical experiments with a terrestrial laboratory mock-up usi ng the novel representation scheme are presented.