Disturbance Minimizing Trajetory Planning for Dual-Arm Space Robot in Post-Detumbling on-Orbit Operations

Abstract

For artificial spacecraft nearing their designed lifespan, on-orbit maintenance and refueling performed by a dual-arm space robot are effective means to extend their service life in post-detumbling phase. These on-orbit life-extension missions involve numerous handling operations, requiring the dual arms to operate along appropriate trajectories. The paper introduces the disturbance minimizing trajectory optimization method for on-orbit handling operations of a dual-arm space robot in post-detumbling phase. During the optimizing process, by appropriately simplifying the differential equations of the combined system, consisting of the dual-arm space robot and the target, the optimal handling trajectory can be time-efficiently and precisely solved based on the pseudospectral method. The optimized trajectory ensures that the dual arms precisely move the component to the desired pose while minimizing disturbance to the base attitude, thereby avoiding the consumption of limited thruster fuel to stabilize the base attitude. Furthermore, numerical simulations demonstrate that the dual-arm space robot, driven by a trajectory tracking controller, can effectively track the optimal trajectory and precisely complete the on-orbit handling task while ensuring minimal base disturbance.