This paper presents a novel testbed capable of rotating a target to follow an arbitrary prescribed rotational trajectory, such as the tumbling motion of a satellite undergoing torque-free dynamics. This work is part of a larger research endeavor investigating technology applicable to autonomous rendezvous and docking with a tumbling satellite. This testbed provides unoccluded visibility of the ...

This paper presents the idea of constructing reconfigurable kinematic limbs by integrating kinematotropic linkages as subchains. Three kinematotropic chains characterized by change in pair connectivities without change of the number of degrees of freedom are concerned and the branch transitions are analyzed. Reconfigurable kinematic limb that provides a constraint couple in one configuration an...