Integrated System for Autonomous and Adaptive Caretaking (ISAAC): Survey Demo
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Abiola Akanni↗
Engineering topics
Kathryn Hamilton
Publications and source records attributed to Kathryn Hamilton.
Integrated System for Autonomous and Adaptive Caretaking (ISAAC) Simulated Cargo Logistics Demo Video
This video shows a simulation of autonomous cargo logistics using ISAAC (Integrated System for Autonomous and Adaptive Caretaking). The video shows autonomous planning and execution of a cargo scenario in which the R2 robot moves a cargo bag from a stowed location to a transfer location in the US Lab on the International Space Station. The Astrobee robot then moves the bag from the transfer location to a new temporary stowage location in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM).
ISAAC↗
Astrobee On-Orbit Commissioning Manuscript and Presentation
The Astrobee free flying robots operate autonomously inside the International Space Station (ISS) with oversight from a ground operator or ISS crew. They replace the Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) as research platforms for zero-g free-flying robotics. Astrobee can also serve as a mobile camera/sensor platform for flight and payload controllers to improve ISS operations. Development began in late 2014, and flight hardware deployed to the ISS on several launches starting from November 2018 to October 2019. Shortly after the first two robots arrived in April 2019, we began a series of commissioning activities to validate the Astrobee robots. This paper reviews the Astrobee system and describes the on-orbit commissioning activities and results.
ISS↗
ISAAC: An Integrated System for Autonomous and Adaptive Caretaking
The Integrated System for Autonomous and Adaptive Caretaking (ISAAC) project is developing technology for autonomous caretaking of spacecraft, primarily during uncrewed mission phases. ISAAC aims to integrate autonomous intra-vehicular robots (IVR) with spacecraft infrastructure (power, life support, etc.) and ground control. It focuses on capabilities required for NASA’s Gateway cis-lunar outpost that also apply to human missions to Mars and beyond. Its development strategy is to test using existing IVR on the ISS (the Astrobee free-flyer and Robonaut dextrous manipulator) as an analog for future IVR on Gateway.
Trey Smith↗
Astrobee's Multi-year Activities at the International Space Station's Japanese Experimental Module
The Astrobee free-flying robots recently completed their third successful year of operations, housed in the Japanese Experimental Module (JEM) on the International Space Station. We summarize the three years of operation, giving special attention to JAXA's 1st and 2nd Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (RPC) and the mapping processes and tools that make Astrobees' autonomous operation possible. The JEM is an ever changing, dynamic environment where light settings, cargo, payloads, and crew members constantly move and interact with one another. The 1st JAXA Kibo RPC event, a collaboration between JAXA and NASA, was held in 2020. Students from several countries in the Asia-Pacific region competed in programming challenges with a simulated Astrobee. The finalists were then invited to run their code on an actual Astrobee in the JEM. For the final round, students programmed Astrobee to visit three different locations to obtain data that would instruct the robot to complete a final task with the participation of ISS crew. The first competition was a tremendous success, leading to an equally successful 2nd JAXA Kibo RPC in 2021 with even larger participation. The 3rd JAXA Kibo RPC will occur in 2022 expanding further to incorporate US participants. These activities led to several firsts in Astrobee’s history: operation of an Astrobee free-flying robot without crew supervision in preparation for on-orbit operations, autonomous image acquisition towards updates of the navigation map, non-NASA code running on the robot (both from JAXA and participating students), two heterogeneous free-flying robots from two different space agencies working together (Int-Ball and Astrobee) during the final event in 2020, the first payload using Astrobee, and having Astrobee controlled from a non-NASA location (Tsukuba Space Center). The preparation towards these activities involved constant evaluation of the different components of Astrobee's systems, specially mapping and localization. The paper describes the evolution of these systems such as the improvements made in localization to reduce localization drift by using graph-based optimization instead of the extended Kalman Filter localizer. Additionally, it reports on the mapping process and analysis tools created to validate map consistency across different activities in the constantly changing JEM environment. These enhancements have enabled the Astrobee facility to successfully execute over 100 ISS activities supporting over a dozen researchers and partners around the world.
Astrobee↗
Mapping the ISS with the Autonomous Free-Flying Astrobee Robots
Space intra-vehicular robots (IVR) can provide coverage survey and targeted close-up inspection imagery capabilities that improve ground operator situation awareness. We report on a series of activities using the autonomous Astrobee robotic free-flyers that mapped the interior of three ISS modules, generating a panoramic tour of the ISS interior without astronaut manual photography. For the ISS, these capabilities can complement or replace time-consuming crew inspection tasks, providing panoramic data products that are easier to navigate than the baseline crew safety videos. For future exploration vehicles with extended uncrewed mission phases, robotic inspection will play a more critical role of providing the primary “eyes in the sky” for vehicle operators.
robotics↗