Guaranteed Safe Spacecraft Docking with Control Barrier Functions

Abstract: This paper presents a strategy for control of a spacecraft docking with a non-maneuvering target in the presence of safety constraints and bounded disturbances. The presence of disturbances prevents convergence to a unique docking state, so in our formulation, docking is defined as occurring within a set constructed using prescribed tolerances. Safety is ensured via application of Robust Control Barrier Functions to render a designated safe set forward invariant for any allowable disturbance. However, this safety strategy necessarily presumes a worst-case disturbance, and thus restricts trajectories to a subset of the safe set when a worst-case disturbance is not present. The presented controller accounts for this restriction, and guarantees that the spacecraft both remains safe and achieves docking in finite time for any allowable disturbance. The controller is then validated in simulation for a spacecraft landing on an asteroid, and two spacecraft docking in low Earth orbit.