Path planning for space manipulators to reduce attitude disturbances

A method for path planning for space manipulators that reduces disturbance to the spacecraft attitude is proposed. The proposed method uses the enhanced disturbance map (EDM) for planning the manipulator path in the joint space. The method sequentially determines the direction of small steps of joint movements that compromises the biobjectives of minimizing the disturbance to the spacecraft attitude and realizing the terminal end effector position. Numerical simulations have been made for a space robot with a two-link manipulator. The result of the simulations show the feasibility of the present path planning algorithm.