A Novel Concept for Guidance and Control of Spacecraft Orbital Maneuvers

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is the design of guidance and control algorithms for orbital space maneuvers. A 6-dof orbital simulator, based on Clohessy-Wiltshire-Hill equations, is developed in C language, considering cold gas reaction thrusters and reaction wheels as actuation system. The computational limitations of on-board computers are also included. A combination of guidance and control algorithms for an orbital maneuver is proposed: (i) a suitably designed Zero-Effort-Miss/Zero-Effort-Velocity (ZEM/ZEV) algorithm is adopted for the guidance and (ii) a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is used for the attitude control. The proposed approach is verified for different cases, including external environment disturbances and errors on the actuation system.