dc.description.abstract | There are many tasks done by humans today that could be done by robots. One
environment where robots are especially useful is space. Because of the limitations of
astronauts, robots could be sent to a planetary environment to prepare a habitat. This
thesis considers two problems that arise when considering sending robots to a planetary
environment. The first problem is the cooperative control of two robots manipulating
flexible payloads. The second problem investigates the communication between humans
and robots using vision techniques. The goal of each problem is to produce a hardware
demonstration in a laboratory environment to demonstrate some of the skills necessary
to implement the ideas in a planetary environment.
Several subsystems were developed by the Space Engineering Institute’s Robotics Space
Colonization Team including an overhead camera system, a wireless communication
network, a Kalman filter, and Central PC System Architecture. Without these systems, neither project could be accomplished. The first project goal was completed through
several phases beginning with theoretical development of the robot and flexible object
models. Simulation results proved the theory to be true and hardware demonstrations
proved that the equations were robust. The second project goal was completed by
introducing more subsystems into the robotics lab including a webcam with image
recognition software, battery information functions, path planning algorithms, and
trajectory tracking control laws. A hardware demonstration was produced that showed
the robot performing the desired the user communicated through patterns. | en |