Experimental validation of the efficient robotic transportation algorithm for large-scale flexible space structures

Abstract

A new large space structure transportation method proposed recently is modified and experimentally validated. The proposed method is to use space robots' manipulators to control the vibration, instead of their reaction jets. It requires less fuel than the reaction jet-based vibration control methods, and enables quick damping of the vibration. The key idea of this work is to use the decoupled controller, which controls the vibration mode and rigid body mode independently. The performance of the proposed method and the control algorithm is demonstrated and quantitatively evaluated by both simulation and experiments.