Detumbling a Non-Cooperative Tumbling Target Using a Low-Thrust Device

This paper presents a new detumbling strategy for non-cooperative tumbling targets using a low-thrust device. The device with a harpoon on the front is released from the servicing satellite and embedded in the target. Then, the device’s thrusters are used to reduce the target’s angular velocity. In this paper, an impact model between the target and the device is established based on the conservative principle of linear and angular momentum. The dynamic equation of the combined system after impact is derived based on the principle of virtual power. A detumbling control scheme combining the linear quadratic regulator (LQR), pulse-width pulse-frequency (PWPF) modulation, and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is developed. The continuous optimal control signal obtained by LQR is transformed into a series of pulse signals by a PWPF modulator. To improve the performance of the detumbling controller, the weighting matrices of LQR are optimized by PSO, and two constrained optimization problems are studied. Finally, the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed strategy are verified by numerical simulations.