Coordinated control of free-floating dual-arm space robots based on hybrid task-priority approach

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of the coordinated control of the free-floating dual-arm space robots, in the case of multiple conflict tasks. Taking the dynamic coupling effect into consideration, a relative Jacobian matrix is presented to establish the kinematic model of the free-floating dual-arm space robot. Then, an adaptive coordinated controller is elaborately developed for three conflict tasks, including position tracking of the master arm, relative motion of dual arms, and obstacle avoidance. Owing to the hybrid task-priority approach, the proposed controller can effectively ensure the execution of the obstacle avoidance task without sacrificing the performance of the first two tasks. In addition, the singularity problem is settled via introducing an adaptive damping factor based damped least-squares inverse. Meanwhile, a novel hyperbolic tangent function is designed to handle the discontinuity in performing the null space task. Finally, numerical simulations were constructed to compare the performance of the proposed coordinated controller based on hybrid task-priority approach with the controller based on task-priority approach. The simulation results show that the proposed controller has an improved tracking performance of the master arm and safety performance, compared with single task-priority approach.