Control of a planar space robot: Theory and experiments

In this paper the attitude control problem of planar space robot is addressed and new feedback control scheme is proposed. Since control laws are synthesized via theory of geometric phase, the proposed control laws contain smooth functions of states and time. The usefulness and validity of this control scheme can be demonstrated by hardware experiments. In experiments to simulate the space environment prototype of the planar space robot is floated by air on the horizontal plane. Experimental results show that the proposed smooth time-varying control laws stabilize the attitude of the planar space robot sufficiently.