US Patent Issued on May 20 for "Maneuvering a spacecraft using an optimized guidance trajectory and model predictive control" (Utah Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,304,664, issued on May 20.

"Maneuvering a spacecraft using an optimized guidance trajectory and model predictive control" was invented by Tyson Smith (Logan, Utah), John Akagi (Logan, Utah) and Greg Droge (Logan, Utah).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "For maneuvering a spacecraft, a method calculates a virtual point that represents a plurality of spacecraft orbiting in a spacecraft formation. The method further iteratively calculates an inner polytope boundary relative to the virtual point for a given spacecraft of the plurality of spacecraft. In response to determining the inner polytope boundary will be breached, the method maneuvers the ...