Heterogeneous Expert Robots for On-Orbit Servicing: A New Paradigm

Abstract

As mandated by the President, the vision for space has generated a renewal of interest in on-orbit servicing, and many of the individual technologies inherent to the concept, as a result of the sophisticated capabilities required to ensure realization of the vision’s aggressive objectives. In response to these needs, the Heterogeneous Expert Robots for On-orbit Servicing (HEROS) architecture was conceptualized. The fundamental baseline of HEROS is driven by the paradigm shift away from the monolithic servicing platforms of the 1980s toward a more pragmatic approach of conglomerate teams of smaller, agile agents. Utilizing a fleet of small, specialized service platforms working symbiotically to achieve a common task requires no single platform to perform all servicing subtasks. Thus, the individual platforms can be made less complex and hence should be more robust, albeit at the cost of complexity introduced by requirements of cooperation. This paper presents a discussion of the advantage/challenges and current research in path planning algorithms for the HEROS architecture.