Cooperative Control for Satellite Formation Reconfiguration via Cyclic Pursuit Strategy

Abstract

This paper investigates a methodology for group coordination and cooperative control of satellites with the aim to achieve formation reconfiguration such as radius enlargement and phase angle adjustment. The proposed approach separates the control law into two distinct stages: planar movement control and orthogonal displacement suppression. The in plane approach is based on a cyclic pursuit strategy, where satellite i pursues satellite i +1. For phase angle adjustment, a control law that makes use of beacons guidance is synthesized to maintain the circling centre stationary. In the orthogonal direction, a linear feed back control on displacement and velocity is used. Simulation of two missions with low thrust are provided, which high light the over all effectiveness of the proposed approach.