An Algorithm for Multi-Axis Autonomous Rendezvous and

Docking

David B Mittelman

NASA Flight Robotics Lab, Marshall Space Flight Center

Drive Actuator selection for autonomous operation, especially in space applications, has
been restricted to the manipulation of only two degrees of freedom at a time. With the
development of an algorithm to modify all the degrees of freedom at the same time, the
time to target and resource consumption could be reduced.



I. Introduction
Automated operations in space have been traditionally avoided in favor of human controlled maneuvers.
However, autonomous control has many advantages if executed properly. There are three major tasks that
human controller do without through practice that a control program will have to execute: Flight path planning,
signal processing, and decision-making.
II. Algorithms
a) Flight Planning
Getting from point A to point B in Space intuitively
seems simple. However, there are many considerations
that have to be taken into account when doing so.
Momentum becomes a large problem considering a
frictionless environment. In addition, getting to point B
doesnt do any good if you arent facing in the right
direction, or arent lined up properly for docking.
Choosing a proper flight path is critical in this situation.
Luckily, there are some mathematical functions that generate a flight path that has many advantages in terms of
autonomously docking.
The function utilized in this implementation is the Logistic Function, seen in Figure 1. The red plot on the
left shows the fundamental logistic function. However, this function does not allow stabilization at the end of
the function. The ideal change would be quick, with a long lead-time and trail time. In addition, the function
should start changing after its zero point. Equations 1 & 2 show the fundamental logistic function as well as
the modified function used for a proper path.

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Equation 1: Logistic Function
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Equation 2: Logistic Function
Figure 1: Logistical Functions
b) Signal Filtering & Position Calculation
Any system that takes in a signal must filter and manipulate the data before it is any use to the system. Raw
sensor measurements are plagued with noise and erroneous measurements due to the imperfections in any
system. A Discrete Kalman Filter was chosen to complete this task.
The Discrete Kalman Filter is a great tool to preprocess time domain data for a multitude of applications. It
allows for accurate estimations of the intended signal despite the presence of large amounts of noise. It is a
recursive estimator, using the previous state as a basis for the estimation of the current state. While expressible
as one single equation, it is often thought of a few equations split between two different phases: the Predict
phase, and the Update phase. The Predict phase projects the current estimate ahead, and the Update phase
adjust the projected estimate to the actual measurement at that time step. The equations are shown below, and
taken from Welsh and Bishop:
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Equation 6: Kalman Filter, measurement
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Equation 7: Kalman Filter, measured state
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updated estimate.
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Equation 8: Kalman Filter, current error covariance
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This method of basing the a posteriori estimate on the a priori estimate allows the Discrete Kalman filter to
produce more accurate results than other linear filters.
c) Flight Decision
Once the position and motion of the vehicle is calculated relative to the target and unaccomplished
waypoints, a movement decision must be made. This decision takes the current motion of the vehicle into
account.
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Equation 9: Linear Motion Equation for Position
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is the required acceleration the vehicle must have to reach
the target in the next time step.

By solving Equation 9 for !
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each time step, shown in Equation 10.
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Equation 10: Determination of required acceleration
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is the Vehicles distance from the Target in the Y-axis at the last time step. The factor
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restrict the generated acceleration based on the distance of the vehicle from the target.

d) Output Selection
The output of any vehicle drive system, no matter how complex, results in three basic components:
Directional X Force, Directional Y Force, and Torque. Since the number of combinations is finite, the resultant
components can be computed prior to running a programs control loop. This breaks the problem down to a
very simple table-sorting problem. This table can be calculated using Equations 11, 12, and 13.
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Equation 13: Torque generated by Thruster
Where: !
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is the Magnitude of the force generated by the drive actuators, !
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is the position of the drive
actuator relative to the Center of Rotation in the Y-axis, and !
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is the position for the drive actuator relative
to the Center of Rotation in the X-axis.
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Equation 14: Resultant force in the X direction
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Equation 15: Resultant force in the Y direction
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Equation 16: Resultant rotational force
Where: N is the number of drive actuators.

Associated with each table entry is the drive decision and its three generated components. To choose the
drive actuator combination that accomplishes the required output, a fitness function is used to evaluate the
fitness of each entry using the Euclidian distance from the required components. Then, the combination
associated with the lowest (fittest) function will be sent as the output from the system.
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Equation 17: Fitness equation to judge table entries
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Equation 18: Decision selection based on minimum fitness
III. System Integration
Each algorithm plays an important part in the overall roll of the
Guidance, Navigation and Control system. The program flow can be
seen in Figure 2. First the motion & position of the vehicle is
measured from its sensors. The measurement is then filtered to
produce estimates for the position, velocity, and acceleration for each
degree of freedom. Based on this measurement, if the current
waypoint has been reached the next waypoint will be selected.
Otherwise, the current waypoint is maintained. Based on the
difference of position between the vehicle and the waypoint, as well
as the vehicles current motion, a decision is made as to what
acceleration needs to be applied to the vehicle. This acceleration is
then used to determine which drive actuators are used to accomplish
this required output based on a best fitness selection. Then, the loop
runs through again.
The vehicle used to conduct our tests was a 1.5-ton air-bearing
vehicle with 18 thrusters used as drive actuators. Each thruster could output either 1-pound of Force, or 3
pounds of Force. The sensor used to compute the vehicles position in relation to the target was the VGS tested
in space already to measure relative position from a target. At the time of this writing the autonomous flight
decision module was still in the debugging stages. However, we were able to run tests to compare a human
pilots ability to dock the vehicle with the target using the thruster selection algorithm, referred to as 3DOF for
short. The control test was a more traditional drive method that fires all the thrusters on the axis of motion,
modifying motion only one axis at a time. This method is referred to as 2DOF.
IV. Results
A total of 32 tests were conducted by the pilot, half being 2DOF flights and half being 3DOF flights. The
results indicate that the 2DOF method, at least with manual control, performs better. It took a human pilot on
average 71.03% of the time it took to dock using the 3DOF method to dock using the 2DOF method. Logically,
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this will equate to the 2DOF method consuming less total air,
36.82% of the air used with the 3DOF method. These results
can be seen in Figures 3 & 4. However, after further analysis
of the thruster firings, it became apparent that regardless of
the shorter docking time, the 2DOF thruster method was
consuming less air, as could be seen in Figure 5. In addition
to using more air than the control test, the 3DOF test also had
more total error across all axes of movement. In other
words, on average it was farther off track than the 2DOF
control test, as seen in Figure 6.
V. Conclusions
Considering a human pilot did the tests, it is possible to
consign the negative results to a higher learning curve than
expected. However, if we consider the construction of the
algorithm, it called for thrusters to fire to minimize any
unwanted directional or rotational force. With the 2DOF,
this could be corrected for by the application of a quick
overcorrection in the opposite direction. In addition, the
3DOF system reduced the drive force in any one-degree of
freedom, as it tried to control all of the degrees of freedom.
The algorithm is on the right track. However, in order to be
more efficient, the user interface (an Xbox controller) and the
fitness measure needs refinement.

!"#$"%&'()*+
Welch, Greg and Gary Bishop. "An Introduction to the Kalman Filter." 24 July
2006. Department of Computer Science, UNC-Chapel Hill. 25 July 2011
<http://www.cs.unc.edu/~welch/media/pdf/kalman_intro.pdf>.
. The Kalman Filter. 3 July 2011. 25 July 2011
<http://www.cs.unc.edu/~welch/kalman/>.
Wikimedia Foundation. "Logistic Function." 26 May 2011. Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. 25 July 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function>.
Esme, Bilgin. "Kalman Filter for Dummies." 1 March 2009. Bilgin's Blog. 25 July
2011 <http://bilgin.esme.org/BitsBytes/KalmanFilterforDummies.aspx>.
Fehse, Wigbert. Automated Rendezvous and Docking of Spacecraft. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.


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Figure 5: Air Consumption over Time
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