Constrained Spacecraft Attitude Optimal Control via Successive Convex Optimization

Rapid attitude path planning is the key technique in autonomous spacecraft operation missions. An efficient method is proposed for energy-optimal spacecraft attitude control in presence of constraints. Firstly, Gauss pseudospectral method is utilized to discretize and transcribe the primal continuous problem to a nonlinear programming problem. Then a set of convexification techniques are used to convexify the nonlinear programming problem to a series of second-order cone programming problems, which can be solved iteratively by the interiorpoint method. A solution to the nonlinear programming problem is obtained as the iteration converges. Numerical results show the method could obtain a valid energy-optimal attitude control plan more rapidly than traditional methods.