Objective of the overall system is that of understanding (and demonstrating) what are the tasks that a robotic crew assistant must be able to execute, in order to be effective for space exploration missions. One of the most important tasks to be accomplished is the autonomous grasping of objects, which has been achieved through a vision and force-based control strategy. This paper deals with the completion of the autonomous grasping task previously described.

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Many research activities are being carried out about space exploration missions, in order to strongly improve man's working conditions in planetary environments. Along this line, this work presents some results obtained within the development of an effective robotic crew assistant. This robot can execute a number of operations, both in a completely autonomous manner (i.e. without requiring human supervision) and in a strict cooperation with the astronauts; thus supporting and helping them in executing operations otherwise very difficult or unfeasible to be accomplished. The developed and then adopted functional and algorithmic control architecture for the considered robot assistant, also including vision and force feedback, is described with some details in the present paper.