Full-physical simulation method based on disturbance moment identification for space dexterous operations

Abstract

Space manipulators are crucial for conducting various space missions. To accurately simulate these operations on Earth, this paper presents a full-physical simulation system and corresponding method based on disturbance moment identification, addressing the issue of incomplete gravity unloading in space dexterous operations. Full-physical simulation is the comprehensive modeling of real-world physical interactions such as motion, forces, and collisions in a virtual environment with high fidelity and accuracy. The system’s hardware configuration is introduced first. Then an innovative full-physical method is proposed mainly consisting of the modeling and optimization of disturbance moment (force). The disturbance moment (force) model is optimized to enhance full-physical simulation accuracy. The control framework gives the system framework and signal flows. Numerical simulations are done to verify the optimization process. Interior point method is utilized to decrease the disturbance moment enormously and to reduce the largest joint moment significantly. Multi-objective particle swarm optimization is then implemented to achieve optimal unloading forces. Finally, experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed full-physical methodology from two aspects: the verification of the identification method and that of optimization method.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

disturbance moment / full-physical simulation / multi-objective optimization / MOPSO / particle swarm optimization / space dexterous operation

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