Modelling and control of dual-arm free-floating space robot using virtual decomposition control for capturing target

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problem of dynamic control of planar schematic dual-arm free-floating space robot. When the arms are approaching the target, one manipulator is designed for the task planning and the other is used to keep the posture of the space base unchanged. The whole system is virtually decomposed into several subsystems and kinematic and dynamic of each system is firstly analyzed. Then, the virtual decomposition controller of each subsystem is designed based on the built subsystems, using the virtual decomposition control (VDC) method. And all subsystem controller consists of the whole system controller. Since the space robot is free floating, there is no exerted force from the environment to the space base, which leads to 3 non-holonomic constraints on the system dynamic and is also taken into consideration in the control algorithm. Finally, simulations are performed on Matlab / Simulink platform and the simulation results show that the algorithm is effective.