Reducing attitude disturbances while teleoperating a space manipulator

A practical teleoperation method for satellite-mounted robot manipulators operated from the ground is described. This control scheme keeps the satellite attitude stable to within specified limits, maintaining the communication link between the satellite and the ground. The authors´ method uses algorithms which dynamically reduce slave manipulator velocity as well as feedforward controlling satellite attitude. The operator on the ground `virtually´ teleoperates the slave manipulator in the graphic simulator without considering the resulting disturbances to the satellite attitude, during which the reference velocity of the slave manipulator is dynamically slowed down by estimating the satellite attitude disturbances. Preliminary experiments using a real-time graphic simulator show that the satellite attitude can be successfully kept within the fine limits needed to safely complete teleoperation tasks