Adaptive control for a payload carrying spacecraft with state constraints.

In this article, a novel adaptive trajectory tracking controller is designed for a payload-carrying spacecraft under full state constraints. The proposed controller can tackle state-dependent uncertainties without a priori knowledge of their structures and upper bounds. The controller ensures time-varying constraints on all states and their time derivatives. The closed-loop stability of the proposed scheme is verified analytically via the Lyapunov method, and real-life experiments using a robotic testbed validated the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive controller over the state-of-the-art. • An adaptive controller for a spacecraft that tackles variations in dynamics. • The state constraints are ensured using a barrier Lyapunov function. • The state constraints are designed to be time-varying. • The stability of the controller is proved using the Lyapunov method. • The controller's performance is verified using a floating robotic testbed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]