Researchers have designed a state-of-the-art walking robot called E-Walker to take on the difficult task of space construction. A robot prototype has already been tested on Earth by assembling a twenty-five-meter Large Aperture Space Telescope. The telescope would usually be built in space.
A smaller-scale prototype of the same robot has also been created and shows promise for large construction applications on Earth, such as maintenance of wind turbines.
The team’s findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
Researchers have been working on In-Space construction for a while. China and Russia intend to construct a Moon base, while space cement is now ready and could be used in construction projects on the Moon and Mars.
Building, maintaining, and servicing large construction projects could not be any more difficult or more needed than in space, with the potential exception of deep-ocean projects. Conditions are extreme, and human-made technology deteriorates quickly in space.
This is where robotics and autonomous systems could play a vital role. They have already proved useful for servicing and maintenance missions. In addition, they have assisted the space community to conduct ground-breaking research on various space missions.
Manu Nair is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Lincoln corresponding author of the recent study. He said, “As the scale of space missions grows, there is a need for more extensive infrastructures in orbit. Assembly missions in space would hold one of the key responsibilities in meeting the increasing demand”.
In their paper, Nair and his colleagues described an innovative, dexterous walking robotic system that can be used for in-orbit assembly missions.
As space missions keep evolving and pushing new boundaries, so do their maintenance and construction projects. Space agencies and companies keep launching bigger and more complex projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope has newer and larger apertures than any seen before. This trend is only set to continue.
Assembling such telescopes on Earth is impossible due to the limited size of current launch vehicles. This is the reason that more of these telescopes need to be assembled in orbit. This is where autonomous robots, like the one designed by Nair’s team, could be utilized.
Nair said, “Although conventional space walking robotic candidates are dexterous, they are constrained in maneuverability. Therefore, it is significant for future in-orbit walking robot designs to incorporate mobility features to offer access to a much larger workspace without compromising the dexterity”.
The newly-proposed robot is called the E-Walker. It is a seven-degrees-of-freedom fully dexterous end-over-end walking robot. This means that it is a limbed robotic system that can move along a surface to different locations to perform tasks with seven degrees of motion capabilities. The researchers compared it to the current Canadarm2 and the European Robotic Arm which are based at the International Space Station.
Nair added that “Our analysis shows that the proposed innovative E-Walker design proves to be versatile and an ideal candidate for future in-orbit missions. The E-Walker would be able to extend the life cycle of a mission by carrying out routine maintenance and servicing missions post assembly, in space”.
More has yet to be accomplished before the new E-Walker is shipped off to space. The current research was limited to the design engineering analysis of a full-scale and prototype model of the E-Walker. Nair explained, “The E-Walker prototyping work is now in progress at the University of Lincoln; therefore, the experimental verification and validation will be published separately”.