Adaptive Prescribed Performance Pose Control of Spacecraft Under Motion Constraints

Abstract

Spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs), as enabling technologies for several on-orbit missions such as removing space debris [1], on-orbit servicing [2], repairing defunct satellites [3], etc., have gained extensive attention. Different from the cases involving only translation or rotation, the proximity operations require that the pursuer perform the translational and rotational maneuvers with respect to the target simultaneously. This fact necessitates the six-degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF) pose tracking control design and analysis. Some representative solutions to the pose tracking control problem have been reported in the literature. Subbarao and Welsh [4] presented a nonlinear feedback control method for 6-DOF motion synchronization of an active pursuer with a tumbling target. Following a similar framework, Hu et al. [5] further explored the finite-time motion synchronization control problem. Recently, Gui and Ruiter [6] proposed a fault-tolerant pose tracking control scheme through incorporating an adaptive integral SMC and an online control allocator. Note, however, that although fruitful results are now available, the dominant majority only focus on achieving the ultimate goals while ignoring underlying motion and performance constraints in RPOs.