Zero reaction maneuver: Flight validation with ETS-VII space robot and extension to kinematically redundant arm

This paper presents the experimental results and post-flight analysis of Reaction Null-Space based reactionless manipulation, or Zero Reaction Maneuver (ZRM). The concept has been developed with an insight into the motion dynamics of free-flying mukibody systems and its practical availability is clearly demonstrated with ETS-VII, a Japanese space robot. The ZRM is proven particularly useful to remove the velocity limit of manipulation due to the reaction constraint and the time loss due to the waiting for the attitude recovery. The existence of the ZRM is very limited for a 6 DOF manipulator arm mounted on a free-flying base, but it is discussed that more operational freedom is obtained with a kinematically redundant arm.