Lightweight Model Predictive Control for Spacecraft Rendezvous Attitude Synchronization
This work addresses onboard attitude control for resource-constrained spacecraft rendezvous missions, representing an incremental improvement in lightweight control methods.
The paper tackles the problem of attitude tracking for spacecraft rendezvous synchronization by introducing two lightweight model predictive control approaches, resulting in improved tracking accuracy and reduced computational effort and memory consumption, with validation on an ARM Cortex-M7 confirming real-time feasibility.
This work introduces two lightweight model predictive control (MPC) approaches for attitude tracking with reaction wheels during spacecraft rendezvous synchronization. Both approaches are based on a novel attitude deviation formulation, which enables the use of inherently linear constraints on angular velocity. We develop a single-loop and a dual-loop MPC; the latter embeds a stabilizing feedback controller within the inner loop, yielding a linear time-invariant system. Both controllers are implemented with CasADi - including automatic code generation - evaluated across various solvers, and validated within the Basilisk astrodynamics simulation framework. The experimental results demonstrate improved tracking accuracy alongside reductions in computational effort and memory consumption. Finally, embedded delivery to an ARM Cortex-M7 - representative of commercial off-the-shelf devices used in New Space platforms - confirms the real-time feasibility of these approaches and highlights their suitability for onboard attitude control in resource-constrained spacecraft rendezvous missions.