Spacecraft Rendezvous and Docking Using the Explicit Reference Governor Approach

This article investigates the autonomous spacecraft rendezvous and docking problem in the presence of space obstacle, path constraints, and thrust limitation constraint. By introducing the frame of explicit reference governor (ERG), a combination scheme of guidance and control is proposed to guarantee the system stabilization and constraints satisfaction. Specifically, an artificial potential function (APF) method is employed to guide a collision-free trajectory, and then the constraints are satisfied via limiting the states within the safe invariant set. Furthermore, a simplified method is proposed to obtain the maximum bound of the Lyapunov-based invariant sets, which ensures input bounded and collision avoidance. System convergence under the potential field is proved through the Lyapunov stability analysis. Numerical simulation results demonstrate the comprehensive validation and good performance of the proposed method.