Abstract: The dynamic grasping area (DGA) is applied for grasping control of a space robot’s capturing a floating target. In the capture,the grasping control becomes quite complicated and important because of the nonlinear characteristics such as the dynamic coupling between the arm and base,the impact and vibration of grasping,etc. A dynamic model of the space robot and floating target is established firstly,and an impact model of hand grasping is introduced. Secondly,the DGA is created for hand grasping control and joint active damping control to reduce the impact effect on the space robot. The simulation results indicate that within the same grasping period,the accelerating grasping is better than uniform grasping in that the impact force swing reduces to 20% of that of uniform grasping. The impact on the space robot is significantly eliminated and only stimulates weak vibrations before the grasping finishes. The results would have important theoretical value and engineering significance.

Key words: space robot, capturing target, dynamic grasping area, grasping control, active damping control, dynamic models