Multiple Point Contact Impedance Control for Capture of Space Debris on Microgravity Environment

This paper describes a contact control method for safely capturing space debris by free-flying robots. Impedance control by multiple point contact (in this paper, using a 2-point contact end effector) can finally move in unison while suppressing the rotational motion of the object. The proposed mechanism converts rotational motion into translational motion and shows that the robot arm can suppress their motion, together with the result of the dynamic simulation.