Trajectory planning for minimizing base reaction of free-floating space robot

In a free-floating space robotic system, the motion of manipulator will transmit the reaction to its base due to the dynamics coupling. Moreover, the base reaction will cause undesirable effects. Therefore, it is necessary to minimize the base reaction. A novel point-to-point trajectory planning approach in joint space is proposed for minimizing the base reaction. Firstly, the joint trajectory is parameterized by using a sinusoidal function. Secondly, an adaptive function is defined according to the base reaction and motion constraints. Finally, the Chaotic Particle Swarm Optimization (CPSO) algorithm is used to search the global optimal trajectory. The proposed method is performed with respect to joint angle constraints, joint velocity constraints and joint acceleration constraints. An illustrative example has verified the validity of the method. Furthermore, the planned trajectory is smooth. Thus the method can be applied to the space manipulator with any DOFs.