Solar-Drag Spacecraft Formation Control with Particle Swarm Optimization-Based Guardian Maps

This paper presents a new control law that combines solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag as a forms of actuation with thrusters to reduce the fuel necessary to perform formation reconfiguration and maintenance. Specifically, utilizing the novel combination of particle swarm optimization algorithm with the stabilization technique of Guardian Map theory, a control law that is robust to changes in orbital position and angle with respect to the sun and velocity vectors is proposed. A linear parameter varying model of the chaser spacecraft that considers the effects of a third-body, and the nonlinear model of solar radiation pressure and atmospheric drag is also proposed in this paper and used in the development of the control law. Results show a reduction in fuel-consumption during the transients of formation reconfiguration and maintenance.