2020/08/21 by Andrew W. Berning, Berning, Andrew W., Dominic Liao‐McPherson +5 · 1 citation
Engineering · #Advanced Control Systems Optimization #FOS: Electrical engineering #Rocket and propulsion systems research #Spacecraft Dynamics and Control #Systems and Control (eess.SY) #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2008.09240
openalex publication_date 2020/08/21 · openalex created_date 2020/09/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NRHOs), a subclass of halo orbits around the L1 and L2 Lagrange points, are promising candidates for future lunar gateways in cis-lunar space and as staging orbits for lunar missions. Closed-loop control is beneficial to compensate orbital perturbations and potential instabilities while maintaining spacecraft on NRHOs and performing relative motion maneuvers. This paper investigates the use of nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) coupled with low-thrust actuators for station-keeping on NRHOs. It is demonstrated through numerical simulations that NMPC is able to stabilize a spacecraft to a reference orbit and handle control constraints. Further, it is shown that the computational burden of NMPC can be managed using specialized optimization routines and suboptimal approaches without jeopardizing closed-loop performance.