| Popis: |
Rendez-vous and docking between two orbiting spacecraft has been studied and validated in-space since already two decades and are therefore wellknown, especially for manned systems. However, recent trends are to design very different rendez-vous and docking techniques with very low impact velocity and very accurate relative position control in order to save docking mechanism mass and complexity, and not to disturb too much the target satellite. In these automatic systems, the difficulties are no more on the mechanical interface design but rather in the on-board sensing and control systems. This paper presents possible on-board estimation and control algorithms for all the phases of the rendez-vous : homing, fly-around, and final translation. Since it is not possible to describe all the on-board control functions within this paper, only some particular points that impact on the control design are detailed. An overall definition of the on-board control function is shown and achievable performances are assessed by means of simulations. |
