Goals
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Get hands on experience in the fields of aerospace engineering, robotics, and habitat design
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Go beyond Gemstone's expectations and attend other conferences in the field if possible
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Meet and collaborate with other students, educators, and experts in the field
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Meet X-hab's expectations and receive continued funding from them
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Our findings don't have to be groundbreaking, but we'd like to make a meaningful contribution in the field of habitat robotics
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Have fun and enjoy our time working together
Scope
The series of Ranger robotic arms was designed at the Space Systems Laboratory in 1990 and has served as a cornerstone of the lab's research for years. The robotic arm that we'll be using is Ranger NBV which will serve as our model for the robotic habitat maintenance system. We are working under the assumption that Ranger NBV could be put on a mobility track and the research that we find with it is applicable to what an actual robotic habitat maintenance system could be capable of. In February, we completed almost all of our test matrices and drawings for the Critical Design Review. Following success in the Critical Design Review, we are beginning to purchase materials for full scale testing and data collection. Moving into the spring, we will continue testing, we may make some minor changes to our designs, and we may purchase some additional materials. Our goal is to identify which tasks are best suited for teleoperated robotics and which tasks should still be conducted by astronauts. This will lay the groundwork for the construction and implementation of a robotic habitat maintenance system in order to reduce the amount of maintenance work required from crew members so that their efforts can be focused on scientific and similar endeavors. Moving into the fall of 2019, the spring of 2020, and even possibly through 2021, we plan to further develop and extend our robotics research in new directions with the hopes of receiving more financial support from X-Hab.