Dynamics and adaptive control of a dual-arm space robot with closed-loop constraints and uncertain inertial parameters

A dynamics-based adaptive control approach is proposed for a planar dual-arm space robot in the presence of closed-loop constraints and uncertain inertial parameters of the payload. The controller is capable of controlling the position and attitude of both the satellite base and the payload grasped by the manipulator end effectors. The equations of motion in reduced-order form for the constrained system are derived by incorporating the constraint equations in terms of accelerations into Kane's equations of the unconstrained system. Model analysis shows that the resulting equations perfectly meet the requirement of adaptive controller design. Consequently, by using an indirect approach, an adaptive control scheme is proposed to accomplish position/attitude trajectory tracking control with the uncertain parameters being estimated on-line. The actuator redundancy due to the closed-loop constraints is utilized to minimize a weighted norm of the joint torques. Global asymptotic stability is proven by using Lyapunov's method, and simulation results are also presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.