Nonholonomic Variable Constraint Control of Free Flying Robots and Its Convergence.

Planning Spiral Motions of Nonholonomic Free-Flying Space Robots

The orientation of a space satellite may change due to the actuation of an attached manipulator. Such a motion is subject to the non-integrable and, therefore, nonholonomic constraints induced by the angular momentum conservation. Some of the previous literatures proposed methods to produce a desired change of the satellite orientation by controlling the attached manipulator. These methods trea...

Dynamics of Space Free-Flying Robots with Flexible Appendages

A Space Free-Flying Robot (SFFR) includes an actuated base equipped with one or more manipulators to perform on-orbit missions. Distinct from fixed-based manipulators, the spacecraft (base) of a SFFR responds to dynamic reaction forces due to manipulator motions. In order to control such a system, it is essential to consider the dynamic coupling between the manipulators and the base. Explicit d...

Inverse control and stabilization of free-flying flexible robots

SUMMARY The question of control and stabilization of flexible space robots is considered. Although, this approach is applicable to space robots of other configurations, for simplicity, a flexible planar two-link robot, mounted on a rigid floating platform, is considered. The robotic arm has two revolute joints and its links undergo elastic deformation in the plane of rotation. Based on nonlinea...

Model Predictive Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots

Sensor-based control of nonholonomic mobile robots

The problem of tracking a moving target with a nonholonomic mobile robot, by using sensor-based control techniques, is addressed. Two control design methods, relying on the transverse function approach, are proposed. For the first method, sensory signals are used to calculate an estimate of the relative pose of the robot with respect to the target. This estimate is then used for the calculation...