Pursuit-evasion orbital game for satellite interception and collision avoidance

This paper develops and evaluates a pursuit-evasion orbital game approach for satellite interception and collision avoidance. Using a coupled zero-sum differential pursuit-evasion game, the pursuer minimizes the satellite interception time, and the evader tries to maximize interception time for collision avoidance. For the satellite interception problem we design an algorithm for pursuer and one for collision avoidance, where the game solution controls the evader satellite. The interception-avoidance (IA) game approach provides a worst-case solution, which is the robust lower-bound performance case. We divide our IA algorithm into two parts: first, the pursuer will rotate its orbit to the same plane of the evader; and second, the two spacecraft will play a zero-sum pursuit-evasion (PE) game. A two-step setup saves energy during the PE game because rotating a pursuer orbit requires more energy than maneuvering within the orbit plane. For the PE orbital game, an optimum open loop feedback saddle-point equilibrium solution is calculated between the pursuer and evader control structures. Using the open-loop feedback control rule, each player will calculate their distributed control track state. Numerical simulations are calculated to demonstrate the performance.