System engineering approach in designing the teleoperation system of the ETS-VII robot experiment satellite

NASDA is to launch an engineering test satellite, named ETS-VII (Engineering Test Satellite VII), to conduct rendezvous docking and space robot technologies experiments in an Earth orbit in the year 1997. ETS-VII satellite carries a 2-m long robot arm which has 6 degrees-of-freedom. The robot arm will be teleoperated from a ground control station using a data relay satellite in the geostational Earth orbit. The communication capacity of the link is limited and there is a time delay of about 4 to 6 seconds. This paper introduces how the teleoperation system of the ETS-VII robot experiment system is designed.