Rendezvous in space with minimal sensing and coarse actuation

In this paper, we propose a control law to achieve a rendezvous of autonomous vehicles moving in three-dimensional (3D) space, using minimal data sensing and quantized control. A pre-assigned graph uniquely assigns the pursuer-target pair in a cyclic manner. A quantized control law has been proposed which allows the vehicle to pitch and yaw simultaneously in the required direction and track its target agent. The only measurement required for the proposed control law is the quadrant from which the target vehicle moves out of the field-of-view of the pursuing vehicle. A Lyapunov function is chosen to find a domain for the field-of-view which guarantees rendezvous under the proposed control law. Computer simulations are presented to demonstrate the control law.