Analysis of a conceptual multi-node flexible small body lander: Bounce suppression and active control

Due to the diverse shapes and weak irregular gravity of small bodies, conventional landers will encounter landing bounce. To solve this problem, this paper studies a recently proposed multi-node flexible lander, in order to elucidate the bounce suppression mechanism of the lander. Initially, the dynamic model of the lander is constructed based on the port-Hamiltonian system. A continuous contact model is employed to capture the dynamics of the collision interaction between the lander and the small body’s surface. Secondly, based on the dynamics model above, an energy-based analysis is conducted to compare the landing impact dissipation mechanism between conventional landers and the multi-node flexible lander. It is demonstrated that the multiple nodes and flexible connections configuration effectively attenuates landing impact, thereby suppressing bounce. Thirdly, the active control scheme for the multi-node flexible lander bounce suppression is proposed, which can further suppress the bounce. Finally, through comparative simulation experiments, the simulation results show that the bounce height of the multi-node flexible lander is obviously lower than that of the traditional lander, and the bounce height and bounce time will be further improved after the active control is applied. Monte Carlo landing experiments under various initial conditions are performed, further validating the efficacy of the multi-node flexible landing system in bounce suppression.