Development of On-Ground Hardware In Loop Simulation Facility for Space Robotics

Over a couple of decades, space junk has increased rapidly, which has caused significant threats to the LEO operation satellites. A mitigating measure should be taken to protect the LEO space environment. An Active Debris Removal (ADR) concept continuously evolves for space junk removal. One of the ADR methods is Space Robotics, whose function is to chase, capture and de-orbit the space junk. This paper presents the development of an on-ground space robotics facility in the TCS Research for on-orbit refueling and debris capture experiments. A Hardware-in-Loop Simulation (HILS) system will be used for integrated system development, testing, and demonstration. HILS is the most effective and vital system to test the on-orbit docking mechanism\u27s reliability, usability, and safety. The HiLS test facility of TCS Research Lab will use two Universal Robot(UR)5e and UR10 manipulators in which one manipulator is attached to the robotic-RG2 gripper, and the other is attached to a force-torque sensor named Hexa-E Onrobot and with a scaled mock-up satellite model. The first UR5 manipulator will be mounted on a 7-axis linear rail and contain the docking probe. First UR5 manipulator with the suitable gripper has to interface its control boxes. The grasping algorithm was run through the ROS interface line to demonstrate and validate the On-orbit and Debris removal operation. The manipulator will be mounted with LIDAR and a Real sense camera to visualize the mock-up model, find the target model\u27s pose and rotational velocity estimation, and a gripper that will move relative to the target model. The other manipulator has the UR10 control, providing rotational and random motion to the mock-up satellite, enabling a dynamic simulator fed by force-torque data. The dynamic simulator is fed up with the orbit propagator model SGP4, which will provide the orbiting environment to the target model. For the simulation of the docking and grasping of the target model, a 7-axis linear rail of a 6-meter setup is still in the procurement process. Once reaching proximity, the grasping algorithm will be launched to capture the target model after reading the random motion of the mock-up satellite model. The HILS system proposed in this paper helps develop on-orbit servicing (OOS) like repairing, upgrading, transporting, rescuing technologies, on-orbit refueling and berthing and debris removals