Reported by: Wang Ji
Photographed by: Wang Ji
Translated by: Ren Shaorui
Edited by: Garrick Jones
On the afternoon of November 9th, Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the CPC, president of the State and Chairman of the CMC, came to the command center of China manned space engineering and watched the orbital test of Tiangong-2 astronaut-manipulator cooperative maintenance. On television, the manipulator arm moved to the predetermined position via manual control; the manipulator hand and arm acting; the manipulator arm resetting and the data glove recovering, and a series of movements were all finished by the astronaut.
The orbital test sets a precedent in the international community, completed by the Harbin Institute of Technology, the Fifth Research Institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and Beijing Institute of Technology. The test is mainly for the assembly and dis-assembly of space equipment in orbit and explores the the typical operation of astronaut-manipulator cooperative maintenance in orbit to accumulate experience for orbital service of space robots.
The Tiangong-2 space manipulator was developed by our institute, made up of the multi-sensory and flexible manipulator arm, humanoid fingers and a dexterous hand with five fingers, the controller and its software, the hand-eye camera, the astronaut-manipulator interaction device and its software, etc. The team developed the manipulator and completed the ground test and the spatial and environmental adaptability test and so on over the past three years. On September 15, 2016, the space manipulator was launched into orbit with Tiangong-2. On October 19, 2016, after the docking of Tiangong-2 and Shenzhou XI, the astronaut and the manipulator worked together to unscrew a screw with an electric tool, remove the insulation material, and finish the tele-operation in orbit. The orbital test of astronaut-manipulator cooperative maintenance is one of the three key test tasks of Tiangong-2. There are 10 astronauts in on the ground training and 80 ones in the orbital operation. November 13, 2016 has seen the full completion of all test tasks.
Since the 10th Five-Year Plan, facing the potential application of manipulator in the space maintenance, the professor Liu Hong and the associate professor Liu Yiwei in our state key laboratory of technology and system have done some innovative research on the dexterous hand, the manipulator arm, the flexible control, the astronaut-manipulator cooperation, the tele-operation and the like, realizing the breakthroughs in key techniques such as safety, dexterity and interactivity during the cooperation. In particular, the motion planning and simulation, the collision detection and the flexible control on the manipulator can ensure the safety of the astronaut and the manipulator; the humanoid and dexterous hand can achieve the free grasping and operation of various objects; the astronaut can control the manipulator and perceive the contact force based on the interactive equipment. The solid foundation for the success of this test is laid by the basic theoretical research, the key technical breakthrough and the system integration solution of the team over many years.
It is reported that China space station will have been built around 2020 and in the ten-year operating cycle, we will be faced with the heavy tasks outside the cabin such as the equipment maintenance, the load and care of the scientific test, etc. The orbital technology of astronaut-manipulator cooperative maintenance, which has the great application potential for the tasks, will provide the important guarantee for the efficient and safe operation of our space station.
The link of CCTV News Broadcast on November 9, 2016:
http://tv.cctv.com/2016/11/09/VIDEEKOYMEF2JkbsMPOPFpV2161109.shtml
