Automation and robotics technology testbed for external servicing

This paper presents the Automation and Technology testbed for External Servicing (ARTES) developed by Tecnospazio on behalf of European Space Agency Technology Center (ESTEC). ARTES was conceived as a ground testbed to perform technology assessment of components, control concepts, algorithms and operational procedures for future Space robots for external servicing. Sensor based robotic control, for instance, must be experienced before exploitation in space applications, being not a mature technology in industry. Based on this need the testbed provides, along with the standard robot controllers capabilities, impedance and proximity control. An experimental evaluation of these techniques is carried out from the execution of a reference task for space robotics, namely the replacement of an Orbital Replaceable Unit (ORU)