Perspectives for miniaturized, distributed, networked cooperating systems for space exploration

Abstract

Space exploration raises challenging autonomy requirements due to significant signal propagation delays and data transmission interruptions in real-time critical situations. This is exacerbated by poorly known working environments and high noise levels. Currently a paradigm shift from traditional large multifunctional spacecraft towards networked formations of distributed small spacecraft is emerging. This places even more emphasis on related research topics for autonomous reactions, in particular •real-time failure detection, identification and recovery on-board, as miniaturization increases susceptibility to noise effects,•networked control of the multi-satellite system, requiring integration of attitude and orbit control with the communication in order to be tolerant to interruptions of the link,•coordination inside the formation for guaranteeing continuous payload measurements, as well as safe operations guaranteeing collision avoidance.The required increasing autonomous on-board control and coordination capabilities are outlined, as well as the cross-fertilization to mobile robots, despite different dynamic properties are underlying. Crucial key functionalities shared are relative navigation, robust data processing, electric miniature actuators, antenna pointing capabilities in order to achieve innovative cost-efficient, fault tolerant, distributed small satellite designs.