JIETSSP: Coordination of Robotic Teams for Space Solar Power Assembly Operations

空间太阳能发电设施的装配将比以往任何在轨装配都要复杂和苛刻得多。虽然很明显，人类工人无法直接建造这样的设施，但涉及许多机器人团队和很少的人类监督者的替代方案还不成熟。为了在这一事业中取得成功，在自主机器人装配和人机交互等领域需要革命性的新能力。该项目将寻求关于如何使用人类监督的自主机器人建造空间太阳能（SSP）设施的基本新见解和示范。它将有两个主要目标，对空间太阳能发电装配的未来很重要：使异构多个机器人能够协调复杂任务的执行，如装配；使装配操作期间灵活的人机交互能够处理无法预料的突发事件。对于一些关键任务，如移动子结构，自主控制已经是可行的。对于其他方面，如连接部件的精细操作，则需要人的感知和控制。PI试图开发一个通用框架，他们称之为滑动自治，其中任何机器人的任何子任务都可以根据情况自主执行或由远程操作员执行。该框架将支持混合主动决策：如果人类用户愿意，他们可以决定控制，而当他们需要帮助时，自主系统可以决定移交控制权。该项目将利用现有的机器人试验台，该试验台是为先前的NASA项目开发的，由三个异构机器人（起重机，移动机械手）组成。和一个流动的眼睛)，用于自主组装。它将演示几个基本的组装任务，如对接梁和串缆。它将根据所花费的时间和成功率来量化滑动自治在这项任务中的优势。效率的明显提高将证明这种装配用于空间太阳能发电设施的可行性。

Assembly of Space Solar Power facilities will be significantly more complex and demanding than any prior on-orbit assembly. While it is evident that human workers will not be able to construct such facilities directly, alternatives involving many robot teams and few human supervisors are not yet mature. To succeed in this enterprise, revolutionary new capabilities are needed in areas such as autonomous robotic assembly and human-robot interaction. This project will seek fundamental new insights and demonstrations of how Space Solar Power (SSP) facilities can be built using autonomous robots supervised by humans. It will have two main objectives, important to the future of Space Solar Power assembly:Enable heterogeneous multiple robots to coordinate in the performance of complex tasks, such as assembly~Enable flexible human-robot interaction during assembly operations to deal contingencies that cannot be anticipated.For some of the key tasks, such as moving substructures, autonomous control is already feasible. For other aspects, such as fine manipulation to connect components, human perception and control is needed.The PI seek to develop a general framework, which they term sliding autonomy, where any subtask, on any of the robots, can be performed either autonomously or by a tele-operator, depending on the situation. The framework will enable mixed-initiative decision making: Human users can decide to take control, if they want, and the autonomous systems can decide to hand over control, when they need help.This project will utilize an existing robotic testbed, developed for a previous NASA program, consisting of three heterogeneous robots (a crane, a mobile manipulator. and a roving eye) that are used for autonomous assembly. It will demonstrate several basic assembly tasks, such as docking beams and stringing cables. It will quantify the advantages of sliding autonomy for this task, in terms of time spent and success ratio. A clear improvement in efficiency will demonstrate the feasibility of such assembly for Space Solar Power facilities.