Optimal multi-impulse close-range rendezvous

The application of hybrid genetic algorithm to space vehicle close-range orbital rendezvous optimization problem was studied based on Lawden's equations, while target vehicle was on an arbitrary elliptical orbit. Firstly, the Lawden's motion model of close-range orbital rendezvous was established, which was simplified based on some reasonable hypotheses. Then, theory of multi-impulse rendezvous was developed and optimal multi-impulse rendezvous control problem was established. The multi-objective optimization performance was selected to minimize the total fuel consumption and total time. The optimal variables included magnitude of impulse components and imposed time of impulse. Terminal state variable constraints included relative position and velocity constraints. Finally, hybrid genetic algorithm was put forward which has high convergence both in global and local optimization problem, and optimization problem was solved using hybrid genetic algorithm, no matter whether the influence of the first impulse's position was taken into consideration. A numerical example was presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of hybrid genetic algorithm. Simulation results show that the total fuel consumption in both conditions is nearly the same.