COLLISION STUDY of SPACE DEBRIS CAPTURE by SERVICE SPACECRAFT with ROBOTIC ARMS CONNECTED by FLEXIBLE JOINTS

The use of space robots to capture space debris is one of the current research hotspots. There are still nonnegligible errors in the velocity, position and attitude of space debris identified by the target, and collisions will inevitably occur during the capture operation.A conventional rigid manipulator with a matching size is used for the capture task,and the space manipulator with service spacecraft will hit from a large, additional momentum to change its position, speed, causing a further instability in the event of a collision, even big collision force will cause damage to spacecraft and space debris, the task to catch space debris brought great difficulties.PAM are light in weight, good in flexibility, large in output force/torque, and have excellent characteristics similar to human muscle.The flexible antagonistic joint driven by PAM has a small stiffness and a small impact force when it contacts with the target debris, and the impact force of the whole space service system is correspondingly small.The relative speed and relative distance between free-floating space robot and the target will be small after the collision, which not only reduces the risk of collision damage, but also reduces the difficulty of capture. Therefore, the space manipulator connected by antagonistic joints is more suitable for the capture of non-cooperative targets.