Robonaut: A Robotic Astronaut Assistant

Abstract

NASA's latest anthropomorphic robot, Robonaut, has reached a milestone in its capability. This highly dexterous robot, designed to assist astronauts in space, is now performing complex tasks at the Johnson Space Center that could previously only be carried out by humans. With 43 degrees of freedom, Robonaut is the first humanoid built for space and incorporates technology advances in dexterous hands, modular manipulators, lightweight materials, and telepresence control systems. Robonaut is human size, has a three degree of freedom (DOF) articulated waist, and two, seven DOF arms, giving it an impressive work space for interacting with its environment. Its two, five fingered hands allow manipulation of a wide range of tools. A pan/tilt head with multiple stereo camera systems provides data for both teleoperators and computer vision systems.