Robust Switching Surfaces Sliding Mode Guidance for Terminal Rendezvous in Near Circular Orbit

The present study aims to present a safe, robust and fast orbital rendezvous guidance. The scheme improves the rate of convergence to equal point until the chaser spacecraft reaches the proximity target. Then, the robust guidance structure is transformed in order to avoid singularity and provide safe rendezvous for reaching the target. Switching is conducted in the guidance scheme by utilizing a self-defined sign function. Moreover, a new modified saturation function is employed instead of the discontinuous part of the sliding mode. The Lyapunov function approach guarantees the asymptotic stability. Numerical simulations are conducted by both linear and nonlinear models of relative dynamics. Mean anomaly, angular velocity, and eccentricity of target orbit are considered as the uncertainties. Finally, the results indicate the performance and robustness of the proposed guidance in the presence of non-linearity, uncertainties, and disturbances, compared to the conventional sliding mode.