Autonomous impulsive rendezvous for spacecraft under orbital uncertainty and thruster faults

This paper investigates the reliable impulsive control problem for autonomous spacecraft rendezvous under the orbital uncertainty and possible thruster faults. The orbital uncertainty is described as the model uncertainty, and the possible thruster faults are modelled by scaling factors. By introducing a state-feedback controller, the autonomous rendezvous problem is regarded as an asymptotic stabilization problem of a switching system composed of impulse action phase and free motion phase. Based on Lyapunov theory and genetic algorithms (GA), a reliable impulsive controller design approach is proposed. With the obtained controller, the autonomous spacecraft rendezvous is accomplished by a series of proper impulse thrust in spite of the orbital uncertainty and the possible thruster faults. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by simulation examples.