Decentralized coordinated control for multiple spacecraft formation maneuvers

Abstract We investigate the decentralized coordinated control problem by looking into local information exchange among formation flying spacecraft regarding formation maneuvers. The nonlinear dynamics that describes the motion of formation flying spacecraft relative to a reference spacecraft is considered for the general case, in which the reference spacecraft is in an ideal elliptical orbit. With the novel use of consensus algorithms combined with behavior-based control, coordinated formation controllers are proposed for three schemes: (i) with full state feedback; (ii) without velocity measurements; (iii) and with external disturbances and parametric uncertainty. The three algorithms used in the schemes can achieve both formation maneuvering and formation keeping, as well as consider actuator saturation. Numerous simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.