The system design uses preliminary works of the institute, namely the DLR light weight robot (LWR) and the DLR hand. The torso (based on LWR technology) and the newly developed mobile platform enlarge the workspace of the arms and hands in a human like manner, by using coordinated arm and leg movements. The modular design of the LWR and the DLR hands enables the configuration of a human-like left and right arm.

The robot has different configurations, including one with wheels. The space version has a head, torso, and arms, but no wheels or legs, because it will be mounted on a spacecraft or satellite. The upper body holds a total of 43 controllable degrees of freedom (2 x 7 in arms, 5 in torso and 2 x 12 in hands). The goal is to use Justin to repair or refuel satellites that need to be serviced. The long term goal of its developers is to make it work autonomously.

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The developers chose to use aRD-concept (”agile Robot Development”) software architecture in order to avoid the use of usual predominately monolithic control structure. Instead, they broke it into individual modules which can be run distributed on multiple processors. The implementation consists of a small collection of libraries and configuration tools. It allows the integration of a variety of standard tools such as Matlab / Simulink for controller design.

For now, the researchers are relying on another approach named robotic telepresence. A human operator controls the robot by using a head-mounted display and an arm exoskeleton. The arms and fingers have force and torque sensors, which provide feedback to the operator via exoskeleton. Justin’s head has two cameras and, used for stereoscopic vision, which enable the sense of depth to the operator. It is also equipped with laser range sensors.

Under development by EADS Astrium, with support from German aerospace centre DLR and the European Space Agency, the magnetic field-protected vehicle will be launched from a submarine on a suborbital trajectory. The initial test vehicle would be launched from a submarine aboard a Russian Volna rocket on a suborbital trajectory, and land in the Russian Kamchatka region. A Russian Volan escape capsule will be outfitted with the device, and the re-entry trajectory will take it up to speeds near Mach 21.

Traditional heat shields use the process of ablation to disperse heat away from the capsule. Basically, the material that covers the outside of the capsule gets worn away as it is heated up, taking the heat with it. The space shuttle uses tough insulated tiles. A magnetic heat shield would be lighter and much easier to re-use, eliminating the cost of re-covering the outside of a craft after each entry.

A magnetic heat shield would use a superconductive magnetic coil to create a very strong magnetic field near the leading edge of the vehicle. This magnetic field would deflect the super-hot plasma that forms at the extreme temperatures cause by friction near the surface of an object entering the Earth’s atmosphere. This would reduce or completely eliminate the need for insulation or ablative materials to cover the craft.

Problems with the heat shield on a spacecraft can be disastrous, even fatal; the Columbia disaster was due largely to the failure of insulation tiles on the shuttle, due to damage incurred during launch. Such a system might be more reliable and less prone to damage than current heat shield technology.

Though the scientists are currently testing the capabilities of a superconducting coil to perform this feat, there is the challenge of calculating changes to the trajectory of a test vehicle, because the air will be deflected away much more than with current heat shield technology. The ionized gases surrounding a capsule using a magnetic heat shield would also put a wrench in the current technique of using radio signals for telemetry data.