AUTONOMOUS CONTROL FOR ON-ORBIT ASSEMBLY USING POTENTIAL FUNCTION METHODS

Potential function methods have been applied extensively to many terre strial and space robot control problems. This paper extends these meth ods to multiple robot problems for on-orbit assembly. By considering a population of free-flying robotic vehicles in orbit, capable of both rotation and translation, the potential function method reduces comple x assembly problems to sets of simple translation and rotational comma nds. This is achieved using a potential function incorporating both co llision avoidance between the free-flyers and connection constraints i n the assembled structure. The method also allows a subsumptive type c ontrol architecture with the flexibility to carry out many different a ssembly tasks simultaneously.