Game Theoretic Approach to Post-Docked Satellite Control

This paper studies the interaction between two satellites after docking. In order to maintain the docked state with uncertainty in the motion of the target vehicle, a game theoretic controller with Stackelberg strategy to minimize the interaction between the satellites is considered. The small perturbation approximation leads to LQ differential game scheme, which is validated to address the docking interactions between a service vehicle and a target vehicle. The open-loop solution are compared with Nash strategy, and it is shown that less control efforts are obtained with Stackelberg strategy.