Gaussian mixture model based fixed-time control for safe proximity to spacecraft with complex shape obstacle

Abstract

Autonomous spacecraft proximity technology is vital for current and future on-orbit service missions, especially to solve the difficult problem of ultra-close-range safe proximity to complex-shaped spacecraft. This paper designs a novel Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based artificial potential function (APF) to describe the movement constraint, which is generated by the complex shape of the target spacecraft. Next, a novel GMM-FTC controller is designed by combining fixed-time control (FTC) with GMM-APF. The proposed GMM-FTC not only retains the advantages of FTC method, whose stabilization time is independent of the initial state, but also solves the collision avoidance in the presence of complex shape obstacle. Finally, numerical simulation verifies the effectiveness of the developed method.