Design and experiments on a free-floating planar robot for optimal chase and capture operations in space

This paper describes an autonomous free-floating robot system that was designed to investigate the behavior of free-floating robots that are involved in the capture of satellites in space. The robot is used as a test bed for algorithms that have been developed for efficient and autonomous capture of objects in space. The robot is a completely autonomous system running under a real-time operating system. It is equipped with two three-degree-of-freedom arms, a three-axis thruster system and a fast communications module. The robot works in conjunction with a host computer. The host computer is used to process the capture algorithms and the robot implements the results in real time. The entire system provides a test bed for algorithms developed for optimal capture of objects in space. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.