Global Grasp Planning for On-Orbit Robotic Manipulation

Design of an analytic grasp planning engine for autonomous capture of novel objects

Master thesis (2021)

Authors

M. Vilella Ramisa Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

A. Menicucci Space Systems Egineering (mentor)
M. Zwick European Space Agency (ESA) (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering, Aerospace Engineering
Copyright: © 2021 Marti Vilella Ramisa
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Published Date

30-08-2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

To manage the increasing amount of satellite traffic in orbit and renewed operational ambitions, it is crucial to advance the capabilities of space robotic systems to enable complex manipulability tasks. These abilities will provide the necessary components to perform satellite de-orbiting, servicing of important assets, and assistance in on-orbit operations. With knowledge transfer from the terrestrial domain, the Aut-O-MAGIC research project proposes global graspability maps based on analytic grasp quality metrics to enable robust gripper operations without external intervention. Global graspability maps draw parallels from terrain traversability maps in robotic navigation, which use cost maps to plan optimised traverses ahead of time. Until now, grasping tasks in space have only had sufficient target surface information to plan the next action, disregarding optimisation or complex tasks that require multiple actions. The Aut-O-MAGIC grasp planning engine provides promising graspability cost maps that indicate populous sets of satisfactory grasps on the target object surface.