Robotic Demands on On-Board Data Processing

This paper gives an overview of the control and computing architectures of current lightweight robots and their demands on on board data processing units. On Earth, robots are an established technology in our daily life. They are getting more and more aware of their surroundings, which allows their use in many new domains. Collaborative workplaces where a robotic co-worker directly interacts with a human are already state of the art. Current research on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the robotic domain will introduce many new applications for robotic systems. These developments also have a great potential to be used in future space missions, for example on-orbit servicing of satellites or maintenance of space stations. However, this induces certain requirements on involved computing hardware that future on-board data processing units will also have to deal with.