Tracking of numerically defined trajectory by free-floating 3D satellite

Abstract

In this paper an input-output decoupling approach was presented for a space object - a free-floating 3D satellite with a 3 DoF manipulator arm. The input-output decoupling procedure allows to control manipulator's end-effector in task space instead in joint space. This, in turn, simplifies the task of trajectory planning which usually is treated as a separate subsystem. In this paper, instead of using analytical derivatives for desired trajectory a numerical equivalents were used. Proposed controller was tested against different granularity of numerical derivatives and proved that it can work with time series as desired trajectory instead of analytically given formulas.