Mondal, SabyasachiUpadhyay, Saurabh2024-11-252024-11-252024-11-11Mondal S, Upadhyay S. (2024) Trajectory shaping guidance for impact angle control of planetary hopping robots. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Volume 11, November 2024, Article number 14529972296-9144https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2024.1452997https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/23215This paper presents a novel optimal trajectory-shaping control concept for a planetary hopping robot. The hopping robot suffers from uncontrolled in-flight and undesired after-landing motions, leading to a position drift at landing. The proposed concept thrives on the Generalized Vector Explicit (GENEX) guidance, which can generate and shape the optimal trajectory and satisfy the end-point constraints like the impact angle of the velocity vector. The proposed concept is used for a thruster-based hopping robot, which achieves a range of impact angles, reduces the position drift at landing due to the undesired in-flight and after-landing motions, and handles the error in initial hopping angles. The proposed approach’s conceptual realization is illustrated by lateral acceleration generated using thruster orientation control. Extensive simulations are carried out on horizontal and sloped surfaces with different initial and impact angle conditions to demonstrate the effect of impact angle on the position drift error and the viability of the proposed approach.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/46 Information and Computing Sciences4007 Control Engineering, Mechatronics and Robotics40 Engineering4001 Aerospace Engineering40 Engineering46 Information and computing scienceshopping robottrajectory shaping controlgeneralized vector explicit (GENEX) guidanceplanetary explorationspace roboticsArticle2296-9144559145145299711