Compliant Force Sensor-Less Capture of an Object in Orbit

Abstract

Space robots have been proposed to perform several tasks in orbit, such as repairing, refueling, and assembly. All those activities require the robot to interact with external objects in a safe and compliant form to avoid high impact forces that may damage the robot's components or the object to manipulate. Impedance controllers have demonstrated to be a suitable approach to perform similar tasks in ground. Therefore, implementing and analyzing impedance-based techniques in space is also worthy of study. Not only that, but also, methods that can reduce the number of components, weight and complexity should be considered. This article proposes the use of the disturbance observer for the design of an impedance controller to perform a safe capture of a target satellite by a space robot. First, the observer aids in the determination of the contact force between the servicer and the target. Later, once the almost perfect match between the actual and estimated contact force is demonstrated, the estimated force is used as input for an impedance controller with trajectory tracking. The advantages of estimating the contact force instead of measuring it are also discussed in the document. The design of the impedance control is performed such that the capturing process is compliant and safe, and, thus, it can help to advance toward an autonomous capture of space objects. A simulation experiment was set up to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the contact force is bounded and behaves smoothly in a spring-mass-damper-like manner, imposing a stable contact between the robot's end effector and the servicer's capturing spot.