Stability control for manipulator space capture by using Particle Swarm Optimization based on distributed controllable dampers

The capture of space floating target tends to excite the oscillation of the manipulator's base. In this paper, a multi-dof manipulator with controllable damper in all the joints is proposed to realize the stability control for the base. Firstly, the general dynamical equations including the controllable damping matrix are established by using Kane method. Then, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to calculate the optimal damping torques of all the dampers, which are used to consume the collision energy. The numerical experiments for a two-joint manipulator space capture with four-dof controllable dampers are researched to validate the effectiveness. The simulation results show that the proposed method can significantly reduce base attitude changes and vibration to ensure stabilization.