PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF THE GUIDANCE AND CONTROL SYSTEM OF A LUNAR DRONE

This paper presents the preliminary design of the Guidance and Control System of a lunar nano (LuNaDrone). This small, rocket-propelled spacecraft is equipped with autonomous navigation, which provides the drone with the ability to fly over the lunar surface. The extreme mobility capabilities of this spacecraft allow a wide range of applications, from exploring sites of interest to last-mile delivery of small payloads. One of the most demanding use-case scenarios is the exploration of lunar pits, which are particularly interesting as some of them may provide access to underground lava tubes. This application is the one considered for the preliminary design of LuNaDrone’s guidance and control system. The flight profile for this mission is a fixed altitude trajectory that can be subdivided into a sequence of elementary manoeuvres. The guidance algorithm presented in this paper allow for the evaluation of the desired state and ideal controls at each point of the trajectory. The tuning of the controller, a Finite-Horizon Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), is obtained from a full factorial design of experiments and refined through numerical optimization to ensure precise navigation while minimizing propellant consumption. The method presented in this paper successfully results in a fully functioning preliminary version of the LuNaDrone guidance and control system