Twist Suppression Method of Tethered Towing for Spinning Space Debris
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 30, Issue 4
Abstract
Towing spinning debris in space is subjected to the risk of twist, increasing the likelihood of collision. To reduce the twist potential, a twist suppression method is proposed for the viscoelastic tether in this paper. The system two-dimensional model is explored taking into account the attitude of the two end bodies and the tether slackness. The twist model describing the twist length is established to investigate the tension change during twist. The impedance based tension controller is designed to regulate tension actively by altering the tether unstretched length. Three cases where the thrust is 1 N, 2 N, and 5 N are studied to validate the feasibility of the method. It is shown that without tension control, towing removal is challenging for the system owing to the twist potential and large tension induced. However, the twist length is reduced dramatically and the relative distance of the two bodies is maintained under the tension control. It is also shown that the controller is robust to the measurement noise, and its performance is better for the lager thrust.
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Acknowledgments
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61005062 and 11272256), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 3102014JCQ01005), and Seed Foundation of Innovation and Creation for Graduate Students in Northwestern Polytechnical University (Grant No. Z2016050).
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 30 • Issue 4 • July 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 26, 2016
Accepted: Sep 19, 2016
Published online: Feb 8, 2017
Published in print: Jul 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 8, 2017
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