Attitude coordination control of spacecraft formation

Abstract

In this paper, a novel nonlinear control approach is proposed for large-angle attitude coordination of multiple networked spacecraft in deep space based on the relative attitudes and angular velocities of neighboring spacecraft. The proposed methodology guarantees the zero final angular velocity during the attitude alignment of spacecraft formation when the communication topology is connected. The controller design method adopts the linear feedback terms in view of the attitude coordination and stabilization, while the nonlinear terms is applied for the performance enhancement. One typical advantage of the proposed approach is that the nonlinear controller parameters can be obtained by using linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, effectiveness of the proposed methodology is illustrated by the numerical simulations of a spacecraft formation.