Prototype design and performance tests of Beijing's astronaut robot

This paper proposes a novel chameleon-like astronaut robot that is designed to assist, or even substitute, a human astronauts in a space station to complete dangerous and prolonged work, such as maintenance of solar panels, and so on. The robot can move outside the space station freely via the hundreds of aluminum handrails, which are provided to help astronauts move. The robot weighs 30 kilograms, and consists of a torso, three identical 4-degree of freedom (DOF) arms, three end effectors, and three monocular vision system on each end effector. Via multi-arm associated motion, the robot can realize three kinds of motion modes: walking, rolling, and sliding. Numerous experiments have been conducted in a simulation environment and a ground verification platform. Experimental results reveal that this robot has excellent motion performance.