We have been very busy in the last months developing the SOLEX environment as we moved to our proving grounds into the DLR Robotics and Mechatronics Center’s\u00a0new building.<\/p>\n
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We are working hard to further develop\u00a0our robot control infrastructure to meet the requirements for the\u00a0upcoming SUPVIS Justin experiment. As we show\u00a0in the figure\u00a0above, our team has\u00a0begun the implementation and testing of our concept\u00a0of maintaining the SOLEX solar panel units with the supervised autonomy control employed on\u00a0Rollin’ Justin.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, several members of\u00a0our team are now\u00a0busy with another exciting space telerobotics project at DLR: the Kontur-2<\/a><\/span> experiments. On this Thursday, December 17, the Kontur-2 team will attempt, to let a person in space to shake hands with a human on the ground 400km below\u00a0using\u00a0a humanoid avatar. Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko will perform a telehandshake using the multi-DOF force-reflection DLR Kontur-2 joystick on board the ISS. He will command\u00a0the high-dexterity DLR humanoid robot Justin on earth,\u00a0to telehandshake with a person on the ground.\u00a0This will be\u00a0a first in space telerobotics, where a human in space using a multi-DOF haptic device will control a high dexterity humanoid robot on the planetary surface to interact with another human, with haptic feedback. The Kontur-2 team hopes to show that with high-dexterity on both ends of the telerobotics chain\u00a0(human operator with a haptic HMI and robot avatar), we can help advance the ability of the robot to help the human race to explore deeper, and safer, into space.<\/p>\n