CONTROL OF SATELLITE FORMATIONS

This paper develops further a new concept for controlling satellite formations by considering the J2 perturbation. The relative orbits considered here are perturbations of periodic orbits obtained from Hill's equations. A novel, disturbance accommodating control design process is presented for minimizing the total fuel consumption for the formation and maintain equal, average fuel consumption of each satellite, over a desired period of time. This is achieved by introducing small, periodic variations in the mean orbital elements of each satellite. The reference relative orbit is modified to take into account the eccentricity of the primary orbit. Results indicate that intelligent cancellation of the disturbance for formation control can be achieved with an average of 13% reduction in the impulse required compared to the "brute force" approach. The maximum impulse reduction for specific satellites can be of the order of 38%.