Adaptive Thrust Vector Control for Deorbiting Space Debris Using a Gimbaled Thruster

抄録

Considerable research is being directed toward active debris removal (ADR) in space, especially by small, cost-effective satellites. In the descent phase, thrust vector control (TVC) is often utilized to maintain the satellite’s trajectory and thrust vector by gimbaling the thrust vector. A common challenge in performing TVC is that its effectiveness depends on the mass, moment of inertia and location of the thrusting point with respect to the center of mass. Since these properties change with fuel consumed during a mission, a designer needs to consider such parameters as they strongly affect the resulting dynamics. This paper introduces spacecraft dynamics with a gimbaled thruster and proposes an adaptive controller for TVC with model uncertainties. Through numerical examples, the effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated for improved control performance.