Position Regulation of a Conductive Nonmagnetic Object With Two Stationary Rotating-Magnetic-Dipole Field Sources

Eddy currents induced by rotating magnetic dipole fields can produce forces and torques that enable dexterous manipulation of conductive nonmagnetic objects. This paradigm shows promise for application in the remediation of space debris. The induced force from each rotating-magnetic-dipole field source always includes a repulsive component, suggesting that the object should be surrounded by field sources to some degree to ensure the object does not leave the dexterous workspace during manipulation. In this article, we show that it is possible to fully control the position of an object in a workspace near the midpoint between just two stationary field sources. A given position controller requires a low-level force controller. We propose two new force controllers, and compare them with the state-of-the-art method from the literature. One of the new force controllers is particularly good at not inducing parasitic torques, which is hypothesized to be beneficial for future tasks manipulating and detumbling rotating resident space objects. We perform experimental verification using numerical and physical simulators of microgravity.