Path-Planning for Elastically Constrained Space Manipulator Systems

Current design proposals of space manipulator systems use a relatively small dextrous manipulator attached to the end of a long flexible manipulator or supporting structure to perform a variety of tasks. Such a configuration presents a number of control problems due to the dynamic interaction between the components of the systems. Principally, the motion of the small manipulator can excite difficult to control vibrations of the large manipulator. This paper presents an analytical technique called the Coupling Map to plan motions of an elastically constrained space manipulator system that result in relatively low residual vibrations to its supporting elastic system. A prototype system is design in some detail as a baseline for simulation evaluation of the performance of the path planning algorithms developed in this study. Experimental evaluation of these algorithms are currently underway.