Testing Capacity for Space Technology Suppliers

Abstract

Starting with industrial painting and entertainment devices, for a long time parallel kinematics is strongly associated with flight simulators. Outstanding studies of parallel kinematics were achieved, from the beginning of their existence, within different applications in aerospace industry. For over 20 years, remarkable results are also obtained at the Technical University in Cluj-Napoca in the field of parallel kinematics. After an extended overview, presented in the MeSRob 2012, regarding some results oriented on the Medical and Service robots (Pisla in New Trends in Medical and Service Robots—Theory and Integrated Applications. Springer, pp. 177–191, 2013) in the chapter a survey is performed regarding the requirements of space robotics for companies that are or will be prepared to become European suppliers in the next space era. Some of the major milestones in space exploration are illustrated in the first part of the chapter, followed by the expertise and capacity of our research center. The training aspects are becoming secondary elements as adapted training facility dictated by the company necessities. Therefore the applications are oriented on the service robots point of view, for testing technical devices, simulating biological experiments in extreme conditions, and as a facilitator of versatile and ergonomic “partner” in aerospace logistics.