This paper presents the robotic vision technologies newly developed fo
r satellites and space station robotic applications at the Pattern Ana
lysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI) Laboratory of the University of
Waterloo and at the Vision, Intelligence and Robotics Technologies Cor
p. (VIRTEK). The first part of the paper presents how the PAMI-VIRTEK
Vision technologies are engineered to support the STEAR (Space Station
, Strategic Technologies in Automation and Robotics Program) sponsored
by the Canadian Space Agency. The second describes the use of stereo
CCD camera for sensing the deformed shape of a third generation satell
ite. It addresses the notion of shape interpolation and error reductio
n.