Feedback control for spacecraft proximity operations under field-of-view constraint

The six degrees of freedom (6DOF) control problem for spacecraft proximity operations is addressed in this work. During the docking process, the field-of-view constraint of the chaser is required to be satisfied, and both the position and attitude of chaser are required to track with the target simultaneously. More specifically, the integrated translational and rotational error dynamics are developed first, and a novel artificial potential function (APF) is designed involving the motion constraint information. Based on this, a feedback control law is proposed to ensure the chaser can reach the desired docking position and attitude with no violation of the constraint. The analysis for the proposed APF and the stability of the system are given based on Lyapunov theorem. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.