EtherCAT in outer Space: Robustness is paramount!

11/2015 | EtherCAT is currently used by several projects on the International Space Station (ISS). Both in „Kontur 2“, a joint project of the German Aerospace Center DLR and the Russian Federal Space Agency ROSKOSMOS, as well as in the „Haptics“ projects of the European Space Agency (ESA).

For the first time, a robot on earth with several degrees of freedom was remote controlled from the ISS. For this task, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko used the Joystick „RJo“, developed by the Robotics and Mechatronics Center of the German Aerospace Center. Thanks to force feedback, the user in micro gravity feels the contact forces of the robot on the ground. The sensors and motors of the joystick are networked with EtherCAT. In this DLR project, a communication link to the ISS is used that has a very short roundtrip time of 2 - 4 ms, but provides very little bandwidth and is only available for a few minutes while the ISS flies by.

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