Multibody Dynamics of Reconfigurable Space System. Part I. On Dynamics Algorithm.

Abstract

This paper deals with a general and efficient computer algorithm to simulate multibody dynamics with configuration changes, which are characterized by a change in the number of degrees of freedom and/or in the constraint equations of multibody systems. These systems are called "reconfigurable multibody systems." When we analyze the capturing and removing process of the damaged satellites by space manipulators, the reconfigurable multibody dynamics must be considered. Dynamics of such systems has not been studied well though it is indispensable to develop the wellfunctioning automatic machines and robots in space as well as on the ground. We introduce the method to express the timevarying system topologies based on the graph theory and the linked list, and reformulate the efficient dynamics algorithm based on the "order n algorithm" for forward dynamics of closed-loop systems. In this paper, we expiain the above algorithms and implement a computer program using the object-oriented programming method. Moreover, we examine how to apply these pragrarns to space systems.