Deep Space Spacecraft Formation Flying

Abstract

This chapter applies the design scheme in Section 8.4.1 to deep space spacecraft formation flying. We propose a decentralized formation control scheme that is built on the combined strength of consensus algorithms and the virtual structure approach. By following a decentralized coordination architecture via the virtual structure approach, we introduce decentralized formation control strategies, which are appropriate when a large number of spacecraft are involved and/or stringent interspacecraft communication limitations are applied. In our decentralized scheme, each spacecraft in the formation instantiates a local copy of the state of the virtual structure, which is the coordination variable using the virtual structure framework. The local instantiation of the coordination variable in each spacecraft is then driven into consensus by communication with its neighbors following a bidirectional ring topology. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategies is demonstrated through simulation results.KeywordsTracking ErrorFormation PatternFormation ControlFormation FeedbackFormation ShapeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.