Space robotic systems are expected to play an increasingly important role in the future. Unlike on the earth, space operations require the ability to work in the unstructured environment. Some autonomous behaviors are necessary to perform complex and difficult tasks in space. This level of autonomy relies not only on vision, force, torque, and tactile sensors, but also the advanced planning and decision capabilities. In this paper, the authors study the autonomous target capturing from the issues of theory and experiments. Firstly, we deduce the kinematic and dynamic equations of space robotic system. Secondly, the visual measurement model of hand–eye camera is created, and the image processing algorithms to extract the target features are introduced. Thirdly, we propose an autonomous trajectory planning method, directly using the 2D image features. The method predicts the target motion, plans the end-effector's velocities and solves the inverse kinematic equations using practical approach to avoid the dynamic singularities. At last, numeric simulation and experiment results are given. The ground experiment system is set up based on the concept of dynamic simulation and kinematic equivalence. With the system, the experiments of autonomous capturing a target by a free-floating space robot, composed of a 6-DOF manipulator and a satellite as its base, are conducted, and the results validate the proposed algorithm.

The relationship between vividness of visual movement imagery and performance on tests of kinaesthetic sensitivity was examined in high school students by comparing performance on three tests of kinaesthesis by high and low imagery students, selected using the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire. High imagers performed significantly better than low imagers when relying on kinaesthetic information. Level of movement imagery predicted performance on a motor task (a manual placement task) when the task was performed in the absence of visual cues (blindfolded). These results reflect the reliance on visual information when performing motor tasks and indicate that, in the absence of visual cues, such information is created from kinaesthetic input via visual imagery. This has important implications for our understanding of the development of kinaesthesis and motor control and may contribute to the development of remedial programmes for children with poor motor ability.