Detumbling strategy and coordination control of kinematically redundant space robot after capturing a tumbling target

This paper focuses on the motion planning to detumble and control of a space robot to capture a non-cooperative target satellite. The objective is to construct a detumbling strategy for the target and a coordination control scheme for the space robotic system in post-capture phase. First, the dynamics of the kinematically redundant space robot after grasping the target is presented, which lays the foundation for the coordination controller design. Subsequently, optimal detumbling strategy for the post-capture phase is proposed based on the quartic B$$\acute{\text{ e }}$$e´zier curves and adaptive particle swarm optimization algorithm subject to the specific constraints. Both detumbling time and control torques were taken into account for the generation of the optimal detumbling strategy. Furthermore, a coordination control scheme is designed to track the designed reference path while regulating the attitude of the chaser to a desired value. The space robot successfully dumps the initial velocity of the tumbling satellite and controls the base attitude synchronously. Simulation results are presented for detumbling a target with rotational motion using a seven degree-of-freedom redundant space manipulator, which demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.