Simultaneous control experiment of orientation and arm position of space robot using drop shaft

We demonstrate the motion of a space robot in nongravity with the use of a drop shaft at the Japan Microgravity Center (JAMIC). The drop shaft provides 10 seconds of nongravity. The technique used to stably levitate a robot is the most important element in experiments with robot motions using a drop shaft. Therefore, we developed a holding mechanism with grippers and tested it first. We then proposed a sensor-based path planning method to control the orientation and arm position of a space robot. This method compiles a database of current sensory outputs, motion and next sensory outputs, and then searches the path using breadth-first search. This method is an application of a finite state machine. We proved the above results with experiments using a drop shaft.