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Orbit and attitude control of spacecraft formation flying

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Abstract

Formation flying is a novel concept of distributing the functionality of large spacecraft among several smaller, less expensive, cooperative satellites. Some applications require that a controllable satellite keeps relative position and attitude to observe a specific surface of another satellite among the cluster. Specially, the target space vehicle is malfunctioning. The present paper focuses on the problem that how to control a chaser satellite to fly around an out-of-work target satellite closely in earth orbit and to track a specific surface. Relative attitude and first approximate relative orbital dynamics equations are presented. Control strategy is derived based on feedback linearization and Lyapunov theory of stability. Further, considering the uncertainty of inertia, an adaptive control method is developed to obtain the correct inertial ratio. The numerical simulation is given to verify the validity of proposed control scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China

    Zhang Zhi-guo  (张治国) & Li Jun-feng  (李俊峰)

Authors
  1. Zhang Zhi-guo  (张治国)
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  2. Li Jun-feng  (李俊峰)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhang Zhi-guo  (张治国).

Additional information

Communicated by CHEN Li-qun

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10672084) and the Specialized Research Fund for Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20060003097)

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Zhang, Zg., Li, Jf. Orbit and attitude control of spacecraft formation flying. Appl. Math. Mech.-Engl. Ed. 29, 43–50 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-008-0106-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-008-0106-x

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Chinese Library Classification

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification

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