Research Problem

The rapid expansion of space technology in military missions, human spaceflight, space exploration, Earth observation and communication has presented new challenges and opportunities for close-proximity operations.

The greater need for safety of these missions has led to a considerable interest in the development of autonomous control for spacecrafts that are reliable and robust. This research aims to use a class of hybrid actuators that exploit environmental phenomena, to autonomously control spacecrafts for Rendezvous and Docking (R&D) with cooperative or uncooperative targets. The applications of this work would include space system assembly, on-orbit servicing using robotic manipulators. The inclusion of uncooperative targets would facilitate implementation of ways to mitigate the ever-escalating space debris crisis.