CEAS EuroGNC 2019
Distributed Autonomous Guidance, Navigation and Control loop for Formation Flying Spacecraft Reconfiguration
| Stefano Silvestrini | PhD Candidate, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy |
| Vincenzo Pesce | PhD Candidate, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy |
| Michèle Lavagna | Associate Professor, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy |
This paper presents a continuous low-thrust control algorithm coupled with the decentralized navigation filter, suitable for distributed space systems reconfiguration. The dynamics of the satellites, representative of J2-perturbed elliptical orbits, is expressed in terms of the relative orbital elements (ROEs). Since the relative orbit determination measurements are typically referred to the Cartesian state of each satellite, a linear mapping between the set of ROE and the Cartesian coordinates expressed in the local-vertical-local-horizontal (LVLH) reference frame is derived. The desired set of ROE at each time-step is determined based on the contribution of counter-acting Artificial Potential Fields (APFs) defined in the ROE space. A feedback control is designed to track the desired state, whose stability is analysed using Lyapunov theory. The guidance, navigation and control algorithms are tested in a high-fidelity numerical orbit propagator for two different operational scenarios, one of which is accurately chosen to show a representative collision avoidance manoeuvre. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm for reconfiguration manoeuvres involving relative distances ~ 1e+2 m with limited fuel consumption and constrained available thrust (? 1 m.N). The proposed algorithm enhances the flexibility of traditional reconfiguration with collision avoidance strategies respecting the robustness requirement and the computational effort.
View PDF CEAS-GNC-2019-011