Coordinated manipulator and spacecraft motion planning for free-floating space robots

This paper studies the coordinated manipulator and spacecraft motion planning for free-floating space robots (FFSR). The kinematics of the FFSR is analyzed based on momentum conservation law firstly. Then a nonholonomic motion planning, including requirements on spacecraft's orientation and end-effector's position is proposed using the chained form transformation and time-state control form. A planar FFSR with a 2 DOFs manipulator is selected to develop the algorithm. And simulation results illustrate that the position of the end-effector and the spacecraft orientation reach the desired state simultaneously. Finally, deficiencies of the method and prospects for the future are summarized.