Cartesian continuous-path planning for free-floating space robot

For the free-floating space robot, the position-level inverse kinematics equations are unsuitable for the continuous Cartesian path planning, and the attitude of the satellite will be disturbed by the manipulator's motion. So a method based on the velocity-level inverse kinematics equations is proposed to plan the motion of the space manipulator. And five aims can be attained: 1) Continuous pose tracking in inertia space; 2) Continuous' position tracking without disturbance on the base attitude; 3) Continuous orientation tracking without disturbance on the base attitude; 4) Continuous position tracking and adjusting the base attitude at the same time; 5) Continuous orientation tracking and adjusting the base attitude at the same time. The approach of damped least-squared inverse is used to avoid the dynamic singularity. The planned path is very smooth and suitable to control the manipulator. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the algorithm.