Research And Implementation Of Space Robot Software System

FFSR (Free-Flying Space Robot) is composed of the robot body and mechanical arms attached to the body. FFSR can fly or float in space and accomplish some tasks for astronauts out of the space capsule. Since the base of FFSR is not fixed, the counterforce caused by arm movement will affect and thus change the position and pose of the robot body. Therefore the control of FFSR is more chanllengable than that of a ground robot. In order to study the characteristics of kinematics dynamics of FFSR in space and verify the feasibility and validity of control algorithms of FFSR, it is not enough to do only theoretical research. It is necessary to build an experimental platform to verify key control algorithms and emulate a zero gravity, zero drag space to carry out experiments. FFSR controller is the heart of a group experimental platform. It is a device that can control FFSR to accomplish pre-defined tasks according to operations or information acquired from sensors. In this thesis, a design approach of FFSR controller software architecture is proposed based on the research on the related FFSR work and open robot controller architecture theory. Then a prototype implementation of the basic controller software platform is illustrated. Then main contributions are the research and porting of the embedded Linux operating system, the real-time enhancement to the embedded Linux, implementation of Finite-State Machine and embedded database management support. And the most important of all is the design and implementation of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) software to facilitate the implementation of control algorithms on the embedded computer of FFSR. This IDE can support multiple computer hardware platforms and can be easily extended to support other hardware platforms as well. And it can improve the efficiency of embedded software development to a great extend.