Sensor Safety and Multi-Objective Satellite Control under Nonlinear Dynamics

Abstract

The safe operation of satellites is critical as the space domain becomes more cluttered with resident objects. Controller synthesis is a technique used to automatically generate correct-by-construction controllers that guarantee a system will satisfy some requirements, such as safety. In this work, we cast the safe satellite operation problem as a controller synthesis problem, and propose an algorithm that synthesizes full-state control of a satellite. This is done by decoupling the translational control from the attitude control. We deploy this algorithm in a close-proximity scenario and show that the synthesized controller satisfies our requirements and guarantees the safety of a chaser satellite.