| Abstract: | The position and force control of coordinated robots mounted on spacecraft, manipulating objects with closed kinematic chain constraints, represents an important class of control problem. In this article, the kinematics and dynamics of free-floating coordinated space robotic system with closed kinematic constraints are developed. An approach to position and force control of free-floating coordinated space robots with closed kinematic constraints is proposed for the first time. Unlike previous coordinated space robot control methods which are for open kinematic chains, the method presented here addresses the main difficult problem of control of closed kinematic chains. The controller consists of two parts, position controller and internal force controller, which regulate, respectively, the object position and internal forces between the object and end-effectors. The stability of the closed-loop coordinated robotic system is analyzed using the error models of the object position and internal forces. It is proved that the errors in the object position and internal forces asymptotically converge to zero under the assumption of exact kinematic and dynamic models. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
