Finding and Following Optimal Trajectories for an Overactuated Floating Robotic Platform

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation environment and a control framework for a free-floating robotic platform, enabling it to find and follow optimal trajectories for space servicing tasks, validated through simulation and real-world experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a representative simulation and software framework for controller development, along with a novel controller for trajectory optimization in free-floating robotic platforms.

Findings

Controller successfully finds and follows optimal trajectories in simulation.

Controller performs effectively in real-world experiments.

Framework enhances testing and development of space robotic servicing systems.

Abstract

The recent increase in yearly spacecraft launches and the high number of planned launches have raised questions about maintaining accessibility to space for all interested parties. A key to sustaining the future of space-flight is the ability to service malfunctioning - and actively remove dysfunctional spacecraft from orbit. Robotic platforms that autonomously perform these tasks are a topic of ongoing research and thus must undergo thorough testing before launch. For representative system-level testing, the European Space Agency (ESA) uses, among other things, the Orbital Robotics and GNC Lab (ORGL), a flat-floor facility where air-bearing based platforms exhibit free-floating behavior in three Degrees of Freedom (DoF). This work introduces a representative simulation of a free-floating platform in the testing environment and a software framework for controller development. Finally, this work proposes a controller within that framework for finding and following optimal trajectories between arbitrary states, which is evaluated in simulation and reality.