Dynamics and experiments of deployable structures in the frame of SE(3) group

Space deployable structures are of great importance in the field of aerospace engineering. To accurately characterize their dynamic behavior during on-orbit operation, this paper proposes a comprehensive strategy for dynamic analysis and a corresponding ground verification scheme for such structures. The main contribution of this paper lies in the development of a dynamic analysis strategy based on the SE(3) group theory, which offers a more precise modeling approach for complex deployable structures and provides an integrated design methodology for large space antennas, from theoretical analysis to experimental validation. To preserve the dynamic characteristics of the system, a composite method under the SE(3) group framework is constructed. Numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed strategy exhibits significant advantages in accuracy over conventional dynamic analysis ones, particularly for long-term dynamic simulation tasks. Also, a ground verification platform is constructed and the corresponding experimental procedure is designed to simulate the dynamic behavior of space deployable structures. The experiment results acquired by a motion capture system show good agreement with the numerical ones obtained from the proposed dynamic strategy, thereby validating the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.