Detumbling a Space Target Using Soft Robotic Manipulators

Abstract

In order to rescue malfunctioning targets and remove space debris, detumbling operation plays an important role in eliminating the rotation of the target before capturing so as to ensure the security. Therefore, we present a detumbling system containing soft robotic manipulators for reducing the angular momentum of the space target. In this paper, we firstly analyze the motion forms of typical tumbling non-cooperative targets. For detumbling the space target, we build the kinematic model and present the control strategy of the detumbling system based on the theory of piecewise constant curvature. In addition, we conduct experiments using the detumbling system containing four soft manipulators to validate the detumbling method. The simulation results show that the anglular velocity of the tumbling space target can be reduced effectively by the detumbling system with different initial relative attitude.