Dynamics Modeling And Simulation Of Spaceborne Deployable Mechanism

Modern spacecraft often carry large-scale and passive deployable structure such as solar panel, antenna and so on, whose deployment will affect its attitude and motion state. Especially when deployable structure is developed into the proper position and locked, great impact will be inevitably loaded on the structure due to the large speed of deployable structure at present and the whole deployable structure will produce violent vibration because of the total energy stored in the structure being released. Thus, it is necessary to carry out dynamics simulation for the deployment and locking process of deployable structure all-around.In this paper, a model of satellite is researched as an illustrative example, of which the solar panels and deployable antennas’ dynamics modeling and simulation are performed, and the simulation results are analyzed. The chief achievement is listed as below:1. Based on the rigid-flexible coupling dynamic performance of spaceborne deployable mechanism, the method of dynamics modeling is presented, including coordinate selection, the position and velocity of particle, the kinetic and potential energy description of system, and so on. Then dynamic differential equations of multi-body systems are established and a process of dynamics simulation applied for spaceborne deployable mechanism is proposed.2. The components and development of solar panels and deployable antennas are described, and several hypothesis of rigid-flexible coupling dynamic modeling of spaceborne deployable mechanism are proposed. Based on which, simulation models are created by integrative using Pro/E, Nastran and ADAMS.3. The dynamic characteristics of solar panels and deployable antennas are studied by dynamics simulation, which proved that the development angle and time meet the design requirement. Meanwhile the impact forces in main joints and impact moment in root development mechanisms are calculated by impact function of ADAMS. Based on which, the strength checks are put up for the root joints of solar panels and the development mechanisms of antennas, which proved that the strength of all above the weak part meet the design requirement. Finally the three-dimensional displacement and velocity variations of satellite centroid during the development process of solar panels and deployable antennas are analyzed, which used to evaluate the disturbance on the satellite attitude.4. By comparing the dynamic simulation results of the solar panels and deployable antennas with the deployment experiment, the analysis model is proved to be reasonable and the method is proved to be effective.In conclusion, this paper proposed a method and a process of dynamics simulation applied for spaceborne deployable mechanism, which will be able to offer some references for the design of deployable mechanism.