Autonomous assembly of large structures in space: a technology review

摘要

Autonomous assembly of large structures in space is a key challenge to implement future missions that will necessitate structures to be self-deployed as a single piece. This paper presents a mission analysis of existing concepts for in-space assembly of telescopes, provides a survey of relevant robotics technologies and introduces the expected contribution of the PULSAR (Prototype of an Ultra Large Structure Assembly Robot) project to this challenge.