Feedback Control of a Planar Space Robot Using a Moving Manifold

Abstract

This study discusses a feedback control system for reorientation of a planar space robot, whose angular momentum conservation leads to a nonholonomic constraint. One of the previous works for such systems defines a radially isometric orientation and establishes a smooth time-invariant feedback controller, but the proposed controller suffers from slow rate of convergence for a desired configuration placed near its zero-holonomy curve. This paper proposes a moving manifold based on a virtual desired configuration, which approaches to a real desired configuration in accordance with the distance to the moving manifold. The derived controller is effective for any desired configuration, and the convergence speed is improved. Some numerical simulations verify its effectiveness of the controller.