Coordinated coupling control of tethered space robot using releasing characteristics of space tether

Tethered space robot (TSR) is a new concept of space robot, which is released from the platform satellite, and retrieved via connected tether after space debris capture. In this paper, we propose a new coordinate control scheme for optimal trajectory and attitude tracking, and use releasing motor torque to instead the tension force, since it is difficult to track in practical. Firstly, the 6-DOF dynamics model of TSR is derived, in which the dynamics of tether releasing system is taken into account. Then, we propose and design the coordinated coupled controller, which is composed of a 6-DOF sliding mode controller and a PD controller tether's releasing. Thrust is treated as control input of the 6-DOF sliding mode controller to control the in-plane and out-of-plane angle of the tether and attitude angles of the TSR. The torque of releasing motor is used as input of PD controller, which controls the length rate of space tether. After the verification of the control scheme, finally, the simulation experiment is presented in order to validate the effectiveness of this control method. The results show that TSR can track the optimal approaching trajectory accurately. Simultaneously, the attitude angles can be changed to the desired attitude angles in control period, and the terminal accuracy is ±0.3°.