A dynamical systems approach to micro spacecraft autonomy

The drive toward reducing the size and mass of spacecraft has put new constraints on the computational resources available for control and decision making algorithms. The aim of this paper is to present alternative methods for decision making algorithms that can be introduced for micro-spacecraft. The motivation behind this work comes from dynamical systems theory. Systems of differential equations can be built to define behaviors which can be manipulated to define an action selection algorithm. These algorithms can be mathematically validated and shown to be computationally efficient, providing robust autonomous control with a modest computational overhead.