Monitoring techniques in a layered control architecture for reliable robotic satellite capture

Satellite capture in space is difficult in a dynamically changing environment. A vision sensor guiding a capturing manipulator toward a satellite can have difficulty recognizing a target covered with shining foil in rapidly changing lighting conditions. Satellite-capturing requires high reliability since space systems are costly. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to detect system limits, to abort a task, or to change a strategy In order to avoid catastrophic failure. Monitoring techniques in a layered-control architecture are proposed for conducting robotic satellite-capturing. The results of ground experiments are also presented.