Developing algorithms for efficient simulation of flexible space manipulator operations

A brief description is given of the European Robot Arm (ERA), and its intended application to assembly, maintenance, and servicing of the Russian segment of the International Space Station Alpha. The need for manipulator simulation is recalled, and ERA simulator development is outlined. System characteristics that must be modelled for...

Influence of reduction and interpolation methods on the correlation of calculated and measured modal data of a solar array

At Fokker Space and Systems the measured and calculated modal data of an ARA 3-panel-clean-wing were correlated. The number of degrees of freedom (dof's) of the finite element model (FEM) is about 6400 and of the measurement 32. Three methods were used to obtain corresponding dof's namely: 1) the number of dof's of the FEM was reduced with a...