Periodic Model Predictive Control for Tracking Halo Orbits in the Elliptic Restricted Three-Body Problem

A periodic model predictive control (MPC) scheme is proposed for tracking halo orbits. The problem is formulated and solved in the elliptic restricted three-body problem (ER3BP) setting. The reference trajectory to be tracked is designed by using eccentricity continuation techniques. The MPC design exploits the periodicity of the tracking model and guarantees exponential stability of the linearized closed-loop system, through a suitable choice of the terminal set and weight matrices. A sum-of-norms cost function is adopted to promote fuel saving. The proposed control scheme is validated on two simulated missions in the Earth–Moon system, which, respectively, involve station keeping on a halo orbit near the L1 Lagrange point and rendezvous to a halo orbit near the L2 Lagrange point. Results illustrate the advantage of designing the reference trajectory and the periodic control directly in the ER3BP setting versus approximate solutions based on the circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP).