Hovering Formation Control Based on Two-Stage Constant Thrust

Abstract

Hovering technology, applied to maintain a chasing spacecraft at a specified position relative to a reference orbit, has received widespread attention in recent years. Conventional impulsive or continuous-thrust control approaches require high demand for the engine and have limited applicability in practice. In this study, a new hovering formation controlled by two-stage constant thrust is proposed. The mathematical model of the two-stage constant-thrust control problem is first formulated, and a rapid method using sensitivity matrix is presented to solve the problem. Then, based on relative orbital elements, the strategy of hovering formation by two-stage constant control in the two-body case is obtained. To avoid the drift of hovering formation caused by perturbation, an improved strategy is presented to guarantee periodic revisits to the specified relative position. Numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method.