Investigation of a light, redundant manipulator for in-orbit applications

The concept of a light, redundant manipulator for in-orbit applications is presented, along with a brief investigation of two control schemes. The configuration control method is analysed by simulating its control effectiveness on a 4-link dynamic model, using ACSL and Pro-Matlab. The results of the simulation show the feasibility of using the configuration control method though the definition of suitable kinematic functions for the addition tasks can introduce difficulties. Problems, such as extra algorithmic singularities and conflicts between the primary and secondary tasks, may result if inappropriate kinematic functions are selected