Time-optimal spacecraft attitude maneuver path planning under boundary and pointing constraints

The rapid large angle attitude maneuver capability of spacecraft is required during many space missions. This paper addresses the challenge of time-optimal spacecraft attitude maneuver under boundary and pointing constraints. From the perspective of the optimal time, the constrained attitude maneuver problem is summarized as an optimum path-planning problem. To address this problem, a metaheuristic maneuver path planning method is proposed, Angular velocity-Time Coding Differential Evolution (ATDE). In the ATDE method, the angular velocity and time are coded for attitude maneuver modeling, which increases the number of variables and results in a high-dimensional problem. In order to deal with this problem, differential evolution is employed to perform variation and evolution. The boundary and pointing constraints are constructed into the fitness function for path evaluation. Finally, numerical simulations for the different cases were performed to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.