Dynamic Coupling and Control of Flexible Space Robots

The dynamic modeling and coupling effect of a space robot are complex when the flexible manipulator and solar panels are considered. This paper investigates the dynamic coupling effect and control of a flexible space robot with flexible manipulators and flexible panels. The equations of motion are derived for the robot model both of the rigid-flexible type and flexible-flexible type. The flexible space robot dynamic model is verified by comparison with the results generated by the ADAMS software, for which good agreement has been obtained. The dynamic coupling matrix of the flexible space robot is derived based on the dynamic model. The effects of the central rigid body mass and the joints angle on the dynamic coupling are analyzed. A control method is proposed to manipulate the flexible space robot based on the system dynamic model. The multiple-impulse robust (MIR) input shaper is used to suppress the vibration of flexible structures in the proposed controller. Appropriate design parameter and frequency scaling factor are selected for the MIR input shaper to suppress the flexible vibration. The flexible space robot control is conducted to illustrate the effect of the proposed controller. It is shown that the proposed control method can realize the desired joints manipulation, while suppressing the vibration of the flexible manipulators and flexible panels.