Assembling Solar Panels by Dual Robot Arms Towards Full Autonomous Lunar Base Construction

TL;DR

This paper presents an integrated vision, control, and hardware system enabling dual robotic arms to autonomously assemble solar panels, advancing lunar base construction capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perception and control pipeline tailored for autonomous solar panel assembly using dual robot arms in space environments.

Findings

Robust assembly of solar panels by dual robots demonstrated in real-world tests

Effective integration of vision, control, and hardware systems for space applications

Successful connection of arbitrarily placed panels in a mock lunar environment

Abstract

Since the successful Apollo program, humanity is once again aiming to return to the Moon for scientific discovery, resource mining, and inhabitation. Upcoming decades focus on building a lunar outpost, with robotic systems playing a crucial role to safely and efficiently establish essential infrastructure such as solar power generating towers. Similar to the construction of the International Space Station (ISS), shipping necessary components via modules and assembling them in situ should be a practical scenario. In this context, this paper focuses on the integration of vision, control, and hardware systems within an autonomous sequence for a dual-arm robot system. We explore a perception and control pipeline specifically designed for assembling solar panel modules, one of the benchmark tasks. Ad hoc hardware was designed and tested in real-world experiments. A mock-up of modular solar panels and active-passive connectors are employed, with the control of this grappling fixture integrated into the proposed pipeline. The successful implementation of our method demonstrates that the two robot manipulators can effectively connect arbitrarily placed panels, highlighting the seamless integration of vision, control, and hardware systems in complex space applications.