Satellite formation flying control design based on hybrid control system stability analysis

Addresses a research topic of interest to air force and space related agencies, namely formation flying control of microsatellites in Earth orbits. Since the propulsive material on board the satellites for relative position control is quite limited, innovative control design methods are warranted to accomplish the formation flying mission requirements that make the best use of control forces and moments. In the paper, such an innovative control design method is presented using hybrid system stability analysis techniques and is applied to the satellite relative position control problem and results are analyzed. The problem formulation naturally fits into a hybrid control system framework because the orbital dynamics is "continuous" whereas the controllers are "discrete" acting only occasionally in a periodic way. Using the proposed method, an intelligent trade off between relative position accuracy requirement and available control effort is obtained.