Spacecraft Autonomous Orbit Planning via Artificial Potential Field for Debris Threat Avoidance

Currently, the increasing number of space debris has led to a crowded orbital space and a rising risk in collision which brings severe challenges to the safe operation of spacecraft. To ensure appropriate orbit transfer of a spacecraft when facing debris threats and that the spacecraft return to its original orbit after evading, this paper introduces an orbit planning method based on the artificial potential field (APF) method. Firstly, the attractive and repulsive potentials are obtained via the real-time positions of the original orbit and the debris, which derive the spacecraft’s motion direction in real time. Secondly, a modified piecewise attractive coefficient, based on relative distance between the spacecraft and debris, is designed to generate a smooth trajectory of the transferred orbit. Finally, the simulation results for spacecraft avoiding single and multiple debris are provided in the simulation section, which illustrates that the spacecraft is capable of avoiding debris collision.