Reference Governor for Constrained Spacecraft Orbital Transfers

TL;DR

This paper introduces incremental reference governor strategies to enhance feedback control for constrained spacecraft orbital transfers, ensuring safety and efficiency while comparing Lyapunov-based and prediction-based approaches.

Contribution

The paper develops and compares Lyapunov and prediction-based incremental reference governors for constrained orbital transfers, demonstrating improved maneuver speed and constraint enforcement.

Findings

Both IRG methods successfully enforce constraints.

Prediction-based IRG achieves faster maneuvers.

Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Abstract

The paper considers the application of feedback control to orbital transfer maneuvers subject to constraints on the spacecraft thrust and on avoiding the collision with the primary body. Incremental reference governor (IRG) strategies are developed to complement the nominal Lyapunov controller, derived based on Gauss Variational Equations, and enforce the constraints. Simulation results are reported that demonstrate the successful constrained orbital transfer maneuvers with the proposed approach. A Lyapunov function based IRG and a prediction-based IRG are compared. While both implementations successfully enforce the constraints, a prediction-based IRG is shown to result in faster maneuvers.