Spacecraft tracking control and synchronization: An assessment of conventional, unconventional, and combined methods

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises breakthroughs in space operations, from mission design planning to satellite data processing and navigation systems. Advances in AI and space transportation have enabled AI technologies in spacecraft tracking control and synchronization. This study assesses and evaluates three alternative spacecraft tracking control and synchronization (TCS) approaches, including non-AI TCS methods, AI TCS methods, and combined TCS methods. The study proposes a hybrid model, including a new model for defining weight coefficients and interval type-2 fuzzy sets based combined compromised solution (IT2FSs-CoCoSo) to solve the spacecraft TCS problem. A new methodology is used to calculate the weight coefficients of criteria, while IT2FSs-CoCoSo is applied to rank the prioritization of TCS methods. A comparative analysis is conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed hybrid model. We present a case study to illustrate the applicability and exhibit the efficacy of the proposed method for prioritizing the alternative TCS approaches based on ten different sub-criteria, grouped under three main aspects, including complexity aspects, operational aspects, and efficiency aspects. AI and non-AI methods combined are the most advantageous alternative, whereas non-AI methods are the least advantageous, according to the findings of this study.