Haptics-2 — A system for bilateral control experiments from space to ground via geosynchronous satellites

On June 5
^th
at 21:10 CEST, the European Space Agency's Telerobotics and Haptics Laboratory conducted the first in history haptic handshake between space and Earth. This demonstration was part of the Haptics-2 experiment, which makes use of two haptic joysticks; one located in space on-board the International Space Station (ISS), and the other one on ground at ESA's laboratory in the Netherlands. Both systems can be connected through the TDRSS geosynchronous satellites via a real-time data link with sufficient performance to perform haptic teleoperation tests. This paper describes the mechatronic design of the haptic devices, the software and the system implementation required for the Haptics-2 experiment. It reports results of a real-time high-frequency characterization of the satellite data-link indicating a round-trip time delay of approximately 850 milliseconds and presents mechatronic performance data of the haptic joysticks. Moreover, the paper presents experimental results from the first haptic handshake conducted between space and ground with astronauts on-board the ISS.