Stable Parking Control of a Robot Astronaut in a Space Station Based on Human Dynamics

Controlling a robot astronaut to move in the same way as a human astronaut to realize a wide range of motion in a space station is an important requirement for the robot astronauts that are meant to assist or replace human astronauts. However, a robot astronaut is a nonlinear and strongly coupled multibody dynamic system with multiple degrees of freedom, whose dynamic characteristics are complex. Therefore, implementing a robot astronaut with wide-ranging motion control in a space station is a tremendous challenge for robotic technology. This article presents a wide-ranging stable motion control method for robot astronauts in space stations based on human dynamics. Focusing on the astronauts' parking motion in a space station, a viscoelastic dynamic humanoid model of parking under microgravity environment was established using a mass-spring-damper system. The model was used as the expected model for stable parking control of a robot astronaut, and the complex dynamic characteristics were mapped into the robot astronaut system to control the stable parking of the robot astronaut in a manner similar to a human astronaut. This provides a critical basis for implementing robots that are capable of steady wide-ranging motion in space stations. The method was verified on a dynamic system of a robot astronaut that was constructed for this research. The experimental results showed that the method is feasible and effective and that it is a highly competitive solution for robot astronauts with human-like moving capabilities in space stations.