The recent increase in yearly spacecraft launches and the high number of planned launches have raised questions about maintaining accessibility to space for all interested parties. A key to sustaining the future of space-flight is the ability to service malfunctioning - and actively remove dysfunctional spacecraft from orbit. Robotic platforms that autonomously perform these tasks are a topic of ongoing research and thus must undergo thorough testing before launch. For representative system-level testing, the European Space Agency (ESA) uses, among other things, the Orbital Robotics and GNC Lab (ORGL), a flat-floor facility where air-bearing based platforms exhibit free-floating behavior in three Degrees of Freedom (DoF). This work introduces a representative simulation of a free-floating platform in the testing environment and a software framework for controller development. Finally, this work proposes a controller within that framework for finding and following optimal trajectories between arbitrary states, which is evaluated in simulation and reality.
翻译:最近每年航天器发射次数的增加和计划发射次数的增多引起了关于保持所有有关各方空间无障碍的问题。维持空间飞行未来的关键是能够服务故障,并积极将功能失调的航天器从轨道上清除出来。自主执行这些任务的机器人平台是一个持续研究的主题,因此必须在发射前进行彻底测试。对于具有代表性的系统级测试,欧洲航天局(欧空局)除其他外,利用轨道机器人和GNC实验室(ORGL),这是一个平地设施,以空气为基础的平台在三个自由度显示自由漂浮行为。这项工作引入了测试环境中自由浮动平台的有代表性的模拟以及控制器开发软件框架。最后,这项工作提议在这一框架内设置一名控制器,以寻找和跟踪任意状态之间的最佳轨迹,并在模拟和现实中加以评价。