A coordinated control strategy for rotating motion of the Hub-Spoke Tethered Space Robot Formation System

The Hub-Spoke Tethered Space Robot Formation System is a new Tethered Formation System, which is formed by a master TSR (Tethered Space Robot) and several sub-TSRs. The control problem of the rotating motion of the Hub-Spoke Tethered Space Robot Formation System is presented in this paper, and a coordinated control strategy is proposed to control the errors of the angle between two neighboring sub-TSRs. Firstly the dynamics of the Hub-Spoke Tethered Space Robot Formation System is discussed based on some simplifications. After that the coordinated control strategy, in which the tether tensions and the torque of the master TSR are used as control values, is described in detail. Finally some detailed numerical simulations are implemented to validate the proposed coordinated control strategy. The simulations results reveal that the proposed coordinated control strategy is capable of improving the control process effectively.