Dual-Quaternion-Based Spacecraft Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking Under Six-Degree-of-Freedom Motion Constraints

Abstract

This paper addresses the integrated attitude and position control problem for the final phase proximity operations of spacecraft autonomous rendezvous and docking, in which important motion constraints of the chaser spacecraft are considered. On the one hand, to ensure reliable real-time measurements of the relative attitude and position information between two spacecraft, the relevant sensor system of the chaser spacecraft is required to continuously point toward the target; on the other hand, for the proximity safety concerns, the chaser also needs to follow a specified approach path constraint. A special dual-quaternion-based artificial potential function is presented to encode information regarding these motion constraints. Using this potential function, a novel six-degree-of-freedom control method is proposed to ensure the arrival of the chaser at the docking port of the target with a desired relative attitude, while strictly complying with all constraints. The closed-loop stability is demonstrated by a Lyapunov-based method in conjunction with the special properties of the artificial potential function. The local minimum problem associated with the artificial potential function can be addressed by selection of control parameters that satisfies a mild condition. Simulation results of prototypical spacecraft rendezvous and docking missions are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Artificial Potential Function Safety and Obstacle Avoidance Guidance for Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking with Noncooperative Target

“…e artificial potential function (APF) developed in recent years was originally used for path planning of robots. APF has theoretically been proven of its stability and high computational efficiency [37,38], which can be applied to path planning of autonomous rendezvous and docking process [28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. e principle of APF guidance is to define an APF reflecting global motion of the chaser.…”

“…Cao et al conceived a suboptimal APF sliding mode control method [29], and Feng et al designed a new sliding mode control strategy based on APF [30]. Dong et al proposed a real-time adaptive control law, which introduced the potential function method to constrain the path of the chaser [31] and then drew into a special artificial potential field method based on double quaternion to constrain the track of the chaser [32]. Chen et al used the artificial potential field method to perform on-orbit assembly of four flexible spacecraft, and the proposed control strategy can protect the chaser spacecraft against collision before reaching the desired position [33].…”

Extended‐State‐Observer‐Based Terminal Sliding Mode Tracking Control for Synchronous Fly‐Around with Space Tumbling Target

“…Under dual-quaternion framework, Filipe and Tsiotras [18] proposed an adaptive tracking controller for spacecraft formation problem and ensured global asymptotical stability in the presence of unknown disturbance. For the safety problem of RVD, Dong et al [19] proposed a dualquaternion-based artificial potential function (APF) control to guarantee the arrival at the docking port of the target with desired attitude. e above research results illustrate the effectiveness of 6-DOF modeling using dual-quaternion framework and also provide the motivation of this paper.…”

Vision-Based Relative Navigation Using Dual Quaternion for Spacecraft Proximity Operations

“…The feedback landing guidance control laws are introduced to handle the translational and rotational motion of rigid body as a single screw motion [6][7][8]. And some adaptive control laws are suggested for spacecraft in relative operation missions [9][10][11]. In relative navigation, estimation techniques using extended Kalman filter (EKF) have been intensively studied.…”