Telepresence

Special Research Unit 453 Effect-oriented Telepresence and Teleaction
Extended Arm of Mankind in Space
Gerd Hirzinger, German Aerospace Centre, Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics
Ulrich Walter, LRT Institute of Astronautics

Telepresence Information Flow

Telepresence will become a key technology of future space travel and planetary exploration. Telepresence technologies will expand the explorative and manipulative possibilities of robots in space travel to such an extent that they will become the extended arm of mankind on the ground. The easiest way to convert this vision into reality is to use direct radio contact (visibility) to the robot in space. Unfortunately low-flying systems (typically 300-800 km altitude) only allow a few (6-8) minutes of visibility. If longer telepresence operations (>30 min) are to be maintained steadily in low-flying systems (e.g. space stations, Space Shuttle), the optimum configuration would be to use an individual geostationary satellite, which maintains the telepresence link between the robot and the ground station. As this plausible infrastructure, which implies automatic antenna tracking in low orbit, does not yet exist in space travel, this partial project is to draw up telepresence structures for future space missions. The goal is as follows:
providing a reliable telepresence link with high quality features (quality of service),
and a modular robot control and regulation concept, which makes integrated telepresence operation possible.
The ROKVISS experiment on the international space station planned by the German Aerospace Centre is to test multimodal telepresence operation (haptic and video channel, HV working space) on the basis of direct radio contact to a low-flying spacecraft for the first time. Different control engineering strategies of the partial project M6 are to be evaluated within the framework of ROKVISS under real conditions and with different simulatable dead times. The experience and experiments are to be used to derive telepresence specific system requirements of an HVA work space for future telepresence structures for space applications. With this as a basis, an integrating HVA reference system is to be specified, developed, and evaluated for space applications, which supplies adequate telepresence links to the ground station on the Earth via a (geostationary) relay satellite on the basis of trackable antennas and independent of the type, position and location of a satellite platform. Apart from telepresence links, a modular control and regulation concept is to be specified, which will expand the classic shared control concept to include telepresence approaches.
It is necessary to demonstrate the feasibility with S/W simulations and tests, to examine the period of establishment for the so-called high-gain link, as well as to analyse the signal stability in the test environment.

	Additional Information Telepresence
	Poster Telepresence for Space Missions (in German)