Electromagnetic formation flight for LEO satellites

Electromagnetic formation flight (EMFF) for satellites in LEO is discussed. EMFF is a technique to control the satellites’ relative position using electromagnetic force without any propellants. It is estimated that the superconductive magnets have capability to produce required magnetic force for formation keeping. The problem to use EMFF in LEO is the huge amount of disturbance torque, caused by enormous magnetic moment and earth magnetic field. Sinusoidal driving of the superconductive coil is proposed for this issue, and novel method is also proposed for magnetic force control using phase difference between the magnetic moments. Proposed methods are evaluated with experiments with actual superconductive coil, and hardware in the loop simulations is also carried out to demonstrate the relative position control capability of proposed system.