Force/torque sensor feedback measuring contact dynamics in space manipulator hybrid simulation

摘要

For real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulations, an industrial robot is used to represent the motion of the software simulated end-effector trajectory of space manipulators. ^To reduce the modelling complexity, especially in all cases where contact occurs between the end-effector and its environment, the equivalent forces and moments are measured in the laboratory by a force/torque sensor and are fed back into the software simulation environment that is based on a real-time multibody formalism. ^This simulation approach proves very efficient, since it avoids the very critical and time-consuming modelling effort of complex contact dynamics that otherwise would deteriorate or even make real-time applications impossible. ^However, one essential drawback of this approach is given by possible instability of the overall simulation loop that is inherently introduced by time delays arising predominantly from control and sensor data acquisition and processing. ^Extensive studies have been performed in order to understand and to remedy this problem. ^(Author)