Abstract: The intelligent control problem of free-floating flexible space manipulator system with bounded control torques and uncertain parameters is studied. According to the momentum conservation and Lagrange-assumed mode method, the dynamic equation of the system is established. In order to realize the asymptotic trajectory tracking of the angles of the base’s attitude and the joints, and to suppress the system’s elastic vibration, the system is decomposed into a slow subsystem and a fast subsystem base on the singular perturbation approach. For the fast subsystem, a second optimization control is used to suppress the vibration of the flexible link, guarantee the system’s stability. For the slow subsystem, a robust and adaptive composite controller is designed. The proposed controller can limit the control torques effectively by the continuous differentiable increasing functions, which lets the controller more practical. And it can overcome the parametric uncertainty’s influence by use of robust and adaptive adjustment, so that it can guarantee the precision of the control system. The computer simulation results show the efficiency of the controller.

Key words: Robust and adaptive control, Bounded control torques, Free-floating flexible space manipulator, Parametric uncertainty, Singularly perturbed