New attitude motion following control algorithm for capturing tumbling object in space

摘要

A novel attitude control method to capture tumbling objects in space is discussed. The capturing procedure considered in this study is that the chaser satellite surrounds the target satellite and synchronizes its attitude to the target's one so that the capturing operation can be conducted with small relative motion between the chaser and the target. To realize this idea, a novel control algorithm called free motion path method (FMPM) has been developed, which enables us to completely ignore a nonlinearity effect in the dynamics by taking advantage of the conservative quantities of the system. The FMPM aims for on-line control and forms a closed-loop system. With FMPM, we can explicitly limit the maximum control torque and can also implement a certain kind of optimality. Some theoretical analyses and the results of computer simulations are shown in this paper.