Time-optimal maneuvers of a spacecraft between two arbitrary states in proximity of a circular reference orbit

Abstract

The problem is considered to find the time-optimal control that transfers a fourth-order system that consists of a double integrator and a harmonic oscillator, coupled by one control channel, between two arbitrary states. That fourth-order system is equivalent to the Hill-Clohessy-Wiltshire model of the relative dynamics of an orbiting spacecraft in proximity of a second spacecraft on a circular reference orbit, subjected to a thrust parallel to the orbital velocity vector and having time-continuous amplitude. A new method is here introduced to determine the time-optimal control problem stated above. This method combines two previously discovered optimal control synthesis methods: the method by Romano and Curti (2020), that enables to find (analytically, in some case) the optimal control transferring a general Linear Time Invariant Normal system between two arbitrary states; and, the method by Belousova and Zarkh (1996), that enables to find the optimal control transferring a fourth-order system consisting of a double integrator and a harmonic oscillator, coupled by one control channel, from an arbitrary initial state to the origin of the state space, if the optimal control is a priori known, that transfers the same system from a reference state to the origin. The here proposed combined method utilizes two phases. During the first phase, a number of reference minimum-time controls are obtained that transfer the system from specific reference states to the state space origin; this is achieved by exploiting Pontryagin’s principle together with back-propagation from the origin of the state space. During the second phase, a search is run along a particular curve in the state space (named extremal search path) that depends on the boundary states of the problem at hand. In particular, a minimum-time control problem is iteratively solved to find the optimal control history that steers the system from a state on that curve to the origin, by exploiting Belousova and Zarkh method, until a particular state is found which satisfies an equivalency condition that, as demonstrated by Romano and Curti, guarantees that the optimal control history pertaining to the problem of transferring the system from that state to the origin is the same optimal control history that transfers the system between the arbitrarily set initial and final states. The new results, substantiated by numerical experiments, have both a theoretical and a practical value, as they could be applied for the optimal guidance of spacecraft performing autonomous proximity maneuvers.