The end-effector of the large space manipulator is employed to assist the manipulator in handling and manipulating large payloads on orbit. Currently, there are few researches about the end-effector, and the existing end-effectors have some disadvantages, such as poor misalignment tolerance capability and complex mechanical components. According to the end positioning errors and the residual vibration characters of the large space manipulators, two basic performance requirements of the end-effector which include the capabilities of misalignment tolerance and soft capture are proposed. And the end-effector should accommodate the following misalignments of the mechanical interface. The translation misalignments in axial and radial directions and the angular misalignments in roll, pitch and yaw are +/- 100 mm, 100 mm, +/- 10 degrees, +/- 15 degrees, +/- 15 degrees, respectively. Seven end-effector schemes are presented and the capabilities of misalignment tolerance and soft capture are analyzed elementarily. The three fingers-three petals end-effector and the steel cable-snared end-effector are the most feasible schemes among the seven schemes, and they are designed in detail. The capabilities of misalignment tolerance and soft capture are validated and evaluated, through the experiment on the micro-gravity simulating device and the dynamic analysis in ADAMS software. The results show that the misalignment tolerance capabilities of these two schemes could satisfy the requirement. And the translation misalignment tolerances in axial and radial directions and the angular misalignment tolerances in roll, pitch and yaw of the steel cable-snared end-effector are 30mm, 15mm, 6 degrees, 3 degrees and 3 degrees larger than those of the three fingers-three petals end-effector, respectively. And the contact force of the steel cable-snared end-effector is smaller and smoother than that of the three fingers-three petals end-effector. The end-effector schemes and research methods are beneficial to the developments of the large space manipulator end-effctor and the space docking mechanism.
