Rotational motion-damper for the capture of an uncontrolled floating satellite

This paper discusses a method for damping the angular momentum of an uncontrolled target satellite in order to make it easy to capture using a chaser-satellite-mounted robotic arm. During the capture operation of an uncontrolled floating target, it may be difficult for the arm to grapple it directly because of the target's nutation or tumbling. In this paper. the authors propose a contact/push-based control method using a cushion-type damper in order to absorb the rotational motion. The scenario is as follows: (1) a cushion-type damper is attached to the end-effector of the arm, (2) the arm softly pushes the damper on a selected point on the target, and (3) the contact force between the damper and the target causes the angular momentum of the target to decrease. The validity and feasibility of the proposed method are verified through numerical simulations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.