4~(th) PAOLO SANTINI MEMORIAL LECTURE DYNAMICS MODELING AND CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SPACE MANIPULATORS

摘要

Robotic manipulators have been playing an important role in many space operations in the last three decades. It is anticipated that robotic activities in space will increase in the future because of their role in active debris removal and servicing of disabled satellites. The field of space robotics is vast. This lecture focuses on two issues: it discusses dynamics modelling and control of space manipulators including the effects of structural flexibility. For dynamical analysis, the manipulator can be modeled as a kinematic chain of interconnected rigid and flexible bodies. Various approaches to develop dynamical models for space manipulators are discussed. The flexibility gives rise to a large number of degrees of freedom. Issues associated with the reduction of the size of the dynamical model are examined. Control of space manipulators can be quite challenging. The space manipulator does not have a fixed base. Also, the dynamics involves widely separated time constants due to the slow link rotations combined with the fast elastic oscillations. These issues are discussed.