OPTIMAL PATHS FOR SATELLITE MOUNTED ROBOTS

During space operations it will become increasingly common to have rob ots on satellites manipulating loads with masses that are not negligib le compared to that of the satellite. It is important there to elimina te the attitude disturbances of the satellite due to movements of the load. In this paper an optimal control approach is used not only to so lve this problem, but also to minimize a cost functional simultaneousl y. Theoretical investigations as well as numerical results for selecte d optimization criteria are demonstrated.