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Point-to-Point Motion Planning of a Free-Floating Space Manipulator Using the Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees (RRT) Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2019

Tomasz RybusOpen the ORCID record for Tomasz Rybus[Opens in a new window]
Tomasz Rybus*
Affiliation:
Electronics Faculty, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Janiszewskiego 11/17, 50-372 Wrocław, Poland and Space Mechatronics and Robotics Laboratory, Space Research Centre (CBK PAN), Bartycka 18a, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: trybus@cbk.waw.pl
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Summary

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It is usually proposed to use a robotic manipulator for performing on-orbit capture of a target satellite in the planned active debris removal and on-orbit servicing missions. Control of the satellite-manipulator system is challenging because motion of the manipulator influences position and orientation of the chaser satellite. Moreover, the trajectory selected for the capture manoeuvre must be collision-free. In this article, we consider the case of a nonredundant manipulator mounted on a free-floating satellite.We propose to use the bi-directional rapidly-exploring random trees (RRT) algorithm to achieve two purposes: to plan a collision-free manipulator trajectory that, at the same time, will result in a desired change of the chaser satellite orientation. Several improvements are introduced in comparison to the previous applications of the RRT method for manipulator mounted on a free-floating satellite. Feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated in numerical simulations performed for the planar case in which the chaser satellite is equipped with a 2-DoF (Degree of Freedom) manipulator. The obtained results are analysed and compared with the results obtained from collision-free trajectory planning methods that do not allow to set the desired final orientation of the chaser satellite.

Keywords

Space roboticsRRT algorithmTrajectory planning

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Robotica , Volume 38 , Issue 6 , June 2020, pp. 957 - 982
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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