Hardware-in-the-loop emulation for 6-DOF free-floating spacecraft using active gravity compensation with a collaborative robot

Abstract

This technical note presents a hardware-in-the-loop testbed that uses a UR10e collaborative robot to emulate 6-DOF free-floating spacecraft motion through active gravity compensation. Experimental validations across all three Cartesian axes demonstrated high translational fidelity with a mean speed correlation of 0.9992 between the measured robot trajectory and an independently initialized rigid-body simulation, low residual forces below the controller deadband, and minor rotational errors of 2° to 6° attributed to kinematic coupling through the robot joint structure. The platform provides a cost-effective testbed for ground-based emulation of free-floating spacecraft dynamics.