Chinese Space Science and Technology ›› 2026, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (3): 119-129.doi: 10.16708/j.cnki.1000-758X.2026.0041

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Event-triggered model predictive control for Halo orbit station-keeping

LI Jiawei1,2,DU Chongrui1,2,*,DAI Honghua1,2,YUE Xiaokui1,2   

  1. 1.School of Astronautics,Northwestern Polytechnical University,Xi'an 710072,China
    2.National Key Laboratory of Aerospace Flight Dynamics,Xi'an 710072,China
  • Received:2025-11-07 Revision received:2025-12-18 Accepted:2025-12-30 Online:2026-05-21 Published:2026-05-31

Abstract: This study aims to balance orbit-keeping accuracy,propellant consumption and computational efficiency for spacecraft station-keeping near Earth-Moon libration points. Traditional nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) imposes a heavy onboard computational burden because it solves complex nonlinear optimization at every control step. A high-fidelity model is developed based on the circular restricted three-body problem combined with low-thrust orbital dynamics. The research introduces an event-triggered mechanism (ETM) and proposes two event-triggered NMPC (ET-NMPC) algorithms. Instead of fixed-period execution,the controller initiates online receding-horizon optimization only when the real-time position tracking error exceeds a preset threshold. Between triggers,when tracking performance remains satisfactory,two low-computation strategies are applied alternately:control-input freezing and control-input nullification. This design avoids numerous unnecessary online optimizations. Long-term numerical simulations show that the ET-NMPC strategies maintain control precision while greatly lowering computational load. With suitable thresholds,both methods reduce average computation time by over 50% and decrease the average triggering frequency by more than 77% compared with standard NMPC. The approach successfully balances control performance with limited onboard computational resources. The proposed control framework offers a novel ondemand optimization solution for deep-space orbital control under strict resource constraints. It significantly expands the practical applicability of nonlinear model predictive control in complex aerospace dynamical systems.

Key words: Earth-Moon system, circular restricted three-body problem, Halo orbit station-keeping, event-triggered mechanism, nonlinear model predictive control