Reinforcement Learning for Low-Thrust Trajectory Design of Interplanetary Missions

This paper investigates the use of Reinforcement Learning for the robust design of low-thrust interplanetary trajectories in presence of severe disturbances, modeled alternatively as Gaussian additive process noise, observation noise, control actuation errors on thrust magnitude and direction, and p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-08
Main Authors: Zavoli, Alessandro, Federici, Lorenzo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actuation
Algorithms
Artificial neural networks
Computer simulation
Gaussian process
Guidance (motion)
Interplanetary trajectories
Machine learning
Markov processes
Mars missions
New Horizons mission
Noise control
Optimal control
Optimization
Robust design
Space missions
Spacecraft guidance
Voyager 1 spacecraft
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Summary:This paper investigates the use of Reinforcement Learning for the robust design of low-thrust interplanetary trajectories in presence of severe disturbances, modeled alternatively as Gaussian additive process noise, observation noise, control actuation errors on thrust magnitude and direction, and possibly multiple missed thrust events. The optimal control problem is recast as a time-discrete Markov Decision Process to comply with the standard formulation of reinforcement learning. An open-source implementation of the state-of-the-art algorithm Proximal Policy Optimization is adopted to carry out the training process of a deep neural network, used to map the spacecraft (observed) states to the optimal control policy. The resulting Guidance and Control Network provides both a robust nominal trajectory and the associated closed-loop guidance law. Numerical results are presented for a typical Earth-Mars mission. First, in order to validate the proposed approach, the solution found in a (deterministic) unperturbed scenario is compared with the optimal one provided by an indirect technique. Then, the robustness and optimality of the obtained closed-loop guidance laws is assessed by means of Monte Carlo campaigns performed in the considered uncertain scenarios. These preliminary results open up new horizons for the use of reinforcement learning in the robust design of interplanetary missions.
ISSN:2331-8422