A Novel Analytical Inverse Kinematics Method for SSRMS-Type Space Manipulators Based on the POE Formula and the Paden-Kahan Subproblem

Space manipulators which have a similar symmetrical structure with seven revolute joints, such as the space station remote manipulator system (SSRMS), can be called SSRMS-type space manipulators. The analytical inverse kinematics of an SSRMS-type manipulator can be solved by locking a single joint; the locked joint (joint 1, 2, 6, or 7) can be determined by configuration analysis. Although widely used in establishing the kinematics of SSRMS-type manipulators, the Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) method has a singular problem when two adjacent joint axes are nearly parallel. To avoid this problem, this paper proposes a novel analytical inverse kinematics method for SSRMS-type manipulators based on the product of exponentials (POE) formula and the Paden-Kahan subproblem. Because of the symmetrical structure, an SSRMS-type manipulator degrades to two kinds of 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) manipulators when locking a single joint (joint 1, 2, 6, or 7). The analytical inverse kinematics of these two kinds of 6-DOF manipulators is solved by combining the Paden-Kahan subproblems and geometric and algebraic methods, respectively. The proposed approach is not only singularity free compared with the traditional DH-based methods but also more accurate than the POE-based numerical solution. The simulation results verify the efficiency of the proposed approach.