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VR-OOS – Virtual Simulation of Satellites for Evaluation and Planning of On-Orbit Servicing

Project description

The use of robots for on-orbit servicing (OOS) of satellites is an attractive alternative to risky and expensive manned space missions, and hence is an active research area at the German Aerospace Center. Virtual Reality (VR) technology provides a medium to simulate and evaluate the interaction of service-robots and potential target satellites in a save and cost-efficient environment. In collaboration with the Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics, the facility Simulation and Software Technology is developing a VR environment that will provide satellite developers and robot experts a research platform for the evaluation of existing satellites with respect to maintainability and service in space, assessment of new satellite designs, analysis of novel space robot systems, as well as for planning, training and control of OOS missions.

DLR Simulation and Software Technology Tasks

The scientific facility Simulation and Software Technology is responsible for the implementation of a digital mock-up for the real-time simulation of a robot in various satellite maintenance scenarios. This will be implemented within an immersive VR environment with highly realistic visual output and interfaces to haptic feedback. One of the main challenges lies in the modeling of the dynamic behavior of the satellite and its components, e.g. a cable connector with rotating latch mechanism, and the robot in orbit. The computed kinematics and their effects on the components must have high accuracy and reflect the real conditions.

The requirement to display the results of the simulation in real-time is another challenge in this project. This includes not only the timely computation of the dynamic processes. The complex geometric models of the satellite and robot have to be displayed at refresh rates of min. 30Hz in high resolution and photo-realistic quality. The integration of haptic feedback, where update rate of 1kHz are typical, puts high requirements on a fast computation. In order to achieve the real-time requirements, optimizations of algorithms and state-of-the-art high-performance computing hard- and software, such as supercomputers, PC-Clusters, and multi-core and GPGPU programming, are used.

Another research aspect is the human-machine interface, which is to allow efficient and ergonomic work with the simulation. It is investigated how existing work-flows and interaction methods can be enhanced and perhaps replaced by novel methods exploiting VR technology. Approaches are for example the use of gesture-based navigation and manipulation within the virtual world. Furthermore, the use of scientific and information-based visualization, such as overlays of additional information, as enhancement of interaction will be investigated.

Publications

Sagardia, Mikel and Hertkorn, Katharina and Hulin, Thomas and Wolff, Robin and Hummel, Johannes and Dodiya, Janki and Gerndt, Andreas (2013) An Interactive Virtual Reality System for On-Orbit Servicing. To appear in: IEEE Virtual Reality Videos 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPqTr3QGcc

Hummel, Johannes and Dodiya, Janki and Wolff, Robin and Gerndt, Andreas and Kuhlen, Torsten (2013) An Evaluation of Two Simple Methods for Representing Heaviness in Immersive Virtual Environments. To appear in: IEEE 8th Symposium on 3D User Interfaces (3DUI'13), Orlando, USA, 16-17 March 2013.

Hummel, Johannes and Wolff, Robin and Dodiya, Janki and Gerndt, Andreas and Kuhlen, Torsten (2012) Short Paper: Towards Interacting with Force-Sensitive Thin Deformable Virtual Objects. In: ICAT/EGVE/EuroVR, 2012, Seiten 17-20. Eurographics Association. Joint Virtual Reality Conference of ICAT - EGVE - EuroVR (2012), 17.-19. Oktober 2012, Madrid, Spain. ISBN 978-3-905674-40-8. http://elib.dlr.de/79471/

Hummel, Johannes and Wolff, Robin and Stein, Tobias and Gerndt, Andreas and Kuhlen, Torsten (2012) An Evaluation of Open Source Physics Engines for Use in Virtual Reality Assembly Simulations. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 7432, Seiten 346-357. Springer. International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC), 2012, 16.-18. July 2012, Rethymnon, Crete, Greece. ISBN 978-3-642-33190-9. http://elib.dlr.de/79462/

Hummel, Johannes and Wolff, Robin and Gerndt, Andreas and Kuhlen, Torsten (2012) Comparing three interaction methods for manipulating thin deformable virtual objects. In IEEE Virtual Reality Workshops (VR), 2012 (pp. 139-140). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYBBZGIp5Vg

Wolff, Robin and Preusche, Carsten and Gerndt, Andreas (2011) A Modular Architecture for an Interactive Real-Time Simulation and Training Environment for Satellite On-Orbit Servicing. In: Proceedings of the 15th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications (DS-RT'11), Salford, UK, September, 2011, pp. 72-80, doi: 10.1109/DS-RT.2011.23 http://elib.dlr.de/73408/

Hummel, Johannes and Wolff Robin and Gerndt, Andreas and Kuhlen, Torsten (2012) Comparing three interaction methods for manipulating thin deformable virtual objects. In: IEEE Virtual Reality, 2012, Seiten 139-140. IEEE. IEEE Virtual Reality, March 04-March 08, Costa Mesa, CA, USA . ISBN 978-1-4673-1247-9. http://elib.dlr.de/76250/

Project partners

• DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics
  • Thomas Hulin: haptic control
  • Katharina Hertkorn: grasping
  • Mikel Sagardia: haptic rendering

• DLR Simulation and Software Technology
  • Robin Wolff
  • Johannes Hummel
  • Janki Dodiya
  • Andreas Gerndt

Project runtime

Since 01.01.2010