Safe docking of a payload-carrying spacecraft using state constrained adaptive control

In this article, we design an adaptive controller for the position and heading control for a payload-carrying spacecraft to perform docking with a target docking station. We address the problem by identifying the state constraints required to safely dock the spacecraft and imposing these constraints on an adaptive tracking controller. To make the controller adapt to different types of payloads, the adaptive controller is designed without any explicit a priori knowledge of the system dynamics or bound for the uncertainties. Furthermore, to accommodate a wide range of initial conditions, the constraints are chosen to be time-varying. Thus, unlike conventional controllers, the proposed controller enforces the safety of the spacecraft during docking by imposing state constraints while adapting to unknown drastic dynamic variations. The controller is validated in simulation for docking a 6 DoF spacecraft in the orbital space. Additionally, for technology readiness, we have performed the hardware validation of the controller using a payload-carrying planar floating robot and a prototype docking station. Compared to the state-of-the-art controllers, the proposed controller guarantees predefined time-varying state constraints while significantly improving the performance. The video of the experimental results is presented here: https://youtu.be/tJtJBibzHhI . • A controller is designed for the safe docking of a payload-carrying space robot. • Safety constraints for the docking are identified and imposed on the controller. • The constraints are designed to be time-varying for the transient state requirements. • An adaptive control method is used to overcome parametric uncertainties. • A simulated validation is performed with 6-DOF relative orbital dynamics. • Experimental validation is performed using a 3-DOF planar space robotic testbed.