Deployment dynamics and experiments of a tendon-actuated flexible manipulator

The quantity of space debris on Earth orbit has escalated tremendously in recent years, presenting a significant hazard to human space operations. It is urgent to develop effective measures to capture and remove various space debris. For this purpose, this paper presents a tendon-actuated flexible deployable manipulator. The flexible manipulator consists of several deployable units connected by Cardan joints and actuated by tendons. Compared with the present technologies for capturing space debris such as rigid robotic arm or flying net, this flexible manipulator is deployable, reusable, lightweight and applicable to the capture of large space debris. In order to investigate its deployment dynamics, an accurate dynamic model of the flexible manipulator is established based on the natural coordinate formulation (NCF) and the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF). Subsequently, numerical simulations are carried out to study the effects of system parameters and the base satellite on its deployment dynamics. Finally, ground experiments for both deployment and bending of the flexible manipulator are conducted to verify its effectiveness and feasibility.