Conference Publication on Autonomous Spacecraft Control

Recent research into closed-loop optimal control for spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations was presented at the 31st AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting by Michael DeVore, Richard Adams, and Adam Reed. Autonomous guidance and control solutions for spacecraft rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) must be robust to modeling uncertainties, unmodeled dynamics, errors in thruster output and alignment, sensor bias and noise, and environmental disturbances. This research developed a closed-loop control approach based on second-order cone programming (SOCP) that supports continuous re-generation of a fuel-optimal control solution that satisfies inequality constraints as well as equality constraints on interior points and terminal conditions within a multi-phase mission