Assembly sequence planning of the solar power satellite

To guarantee the stability of a SPS during on-orbit assembly, the assembly sequence planning of SPS modules is investigated in this paper, taking the Multi-Rotary joints SPS (MR-SPS) as the research objective. Based on the finite element method (FEM), the dynamic model of the MR-SPS during on-orbit assembly is firstly proposed. The sequence planning of all assembling modules is transformed as optimal assembly location problem of each on-orbit assembly, and the assembly location of each module is set as optimal variable. Then, coding the variables and selecting the maximum structural stiffness after each assembly as optimizing criterion, the optimal assembly sequence is planned based on the genetic algorithm (GA). Numerical simulations are finally provided to illustrate the proposed assembly sequence planning method, and the results demonstrate that the stability of the MR-SPS during on-orbit assembly is well guaranteed.