University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.

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Abstract—This paper investigates the influence that a nonuniform gravitational field has on the dynamics of a space robot. This is accomplished by obtaining the differential equations of motion of the space robot using three gravitational field potential approximations: a uniform field approximation, a zeroth-order Taylor series expansion of the field about the center of mass of each body, and a second-order binomial series expansion of the gravitational field. The three models are then simulated in a free-fall from identical initial conditions. The results indicate that a zeroth-order series expansion of the gravitational field about the center of mass of each body provides a sufficiently high degree of accuracy without resulting in a significant computational burden.

Index Terms—Space robotics, dynamical modeling, simulation, gravitational field, MacCullagh formula, Lagrangian mechanics.

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Cite: Douglas R. Isenberg, Y.P. Kakad, "Simulating the Effects of a Non-Uniform Gravitational Field on a Space Robot," Journal of Computers vol. 4, no. 12, pp. 1255-1262, 2009.