ADAPTIVE TRUSS MANIPULATOR SPACE CRANE CONCEPT

An adaptive truss manipulator (ATM) space crane concept for in-space assembly and construction is described in this paper. The underlying mechanism of ATM operation is based on the geometric transformation of its constituent truss modules. In this paper, kinematic description of an ATM is based on the Jacobian matrix derived via the solution technique developed in truss structural analysis, i.e., ''extended method of joints.'' The algorithm based on this method is of computational complexity theta(m2) where m is the number of truss members in the ATM. Numerical simulations were performed to demonstrate the ATM's key features including deployment/retraction, articulation, and operation with bracing strategy. Such features, especially the bracing strategy, offer a great deal of potential in meeting the operational requirements of the in-space assembly and construction scenarios.