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CEAS EuroGNC 2026

Safe Deep Reinforcement Learning for Spacecraft Reorientation with Pointing Keep-Out Constraint
Juntang Yang Postdoc, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Mohamed Khalil Ben-Larbi Professor, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Abstract:
This paper implements deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with a safety filter for spacecraft reorientation control with a single pointing keep-out zone. A new state space representation is designed which includes a compact representation of the attitude constraint zone. A reward function is formulated to achieve the control objective while enforcing the attitude constraint. The soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm is adopted to handle continuous state and action space. A curriculum learning approach is implemented for agent training. To guarantee the compliance of the attitude constraint, a control barrier function (CBF)-based safety filter is implemented for agent deployment. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed state space presentation and the designed reward function. Monte Carlo simulations underscore that reward shaping alone cannot guarantee the safety during reorientation maneuver. In contrast, with the CBF-based safety filter, the constraint can be guaranteed during maneuvers.
Keywords: Deep Reinforcement Learning; Safe Reinforcement Learning; Spacecraft Attitude Control; Pointing Constraint; Safety Filter; Control Barrier Function
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2026-038 doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-038


Juntang Yang, Mohamed Khalil Ben-Larbi: Safe Deep Reinforcement Learning for Spacecraft Reorientation with Pointing Keep-Out Constraint. Proceedings of the 2026 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Madrid, Spain. May 2026. doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-038.
BibTeX entry (UTF-8):

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2026-038,
    author = {Yang, Juntang and Ben-Larbi, Mohamed Khalil},
    title = {Safe Deep Reinforcement Learning for Spacecraft Reorientation with Pointing Keep-Out Constraint},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Madrid, Spain},
    month = may,
    year = {2026},
    doi = {10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-038}
}