Design and Experiment of Modular Hyper-redundant Space Manipulator

A modular hyper-redundant space manipulator with 9-DOF (degree-of-freedom) is designed for the requirements of space on-orbit service tasks. The designed manipulator is composed of 9 identical manipulator joints, and the number of joints can be adjusted according to the task requirements. The modular joint is of an integrated design, and the mechanical transmission part and electrical part are reasonably arranged in the joint. Based on the improved Bi-RRT (bidirectional rapidly-exploring random tree) algorithm and the established forward and inverse kinematics models of the manipulator, the simulation and experiment of the manipulator crossing the complex obstacle environment are carried out. The experimental results show that the designed manipulator can cross the obstacle environment flexibly. Based on the impedance control algorithm, the writing experiment and the constant force holding experiment are carried out with the manipulator, respectively. The experimental results show that the manipulator has a good force control ability. The above experiments verify that the designed manipulator has the ability to perform on-orbit service in the complex space environment.