Analysis of rendezvous maneuvers exploiting impedance control technique

The impedance control technique commands the chaser interface - usually represented by a robotic arm -To behave like a mass-spring-damper system, absorbing the impact energy of the target and therefore maintaining a continuous contact in the following phases. The paper describes a complete implementation of this technique to one-And two-Arms configurations of the chaser, referring to medium-class satellite platforms. The analysis is carried on numerically, by an extremely effective co-simulation approach combining MSC Adams for the multibody dynamics and Matlab/Simulink for the control. Additionally, a possible experimental set-up suitable for this approach and original applications of the technique to in-orbit operations are introduced