A STUDY OF THE CONTROL STRATEGY OF LOW-THRUST FORMATION-KEEPING

摘要

Satellite formation flight mission takes a long time, so long-term perturbation effects (such as the J_2 effect) should be countered to maintain the formation. Our previous study (formation-keeping using solar radiation pressure) led to a full dynamic model for the relative motion of formation flight and some stability conditions. In this study the dynamic model and stability conditions are applied to formation-keeping problems using small thrusters, and a control strategy is introduced for out-of-plane and in-plane relative motion. The same numerical example was used to compare with the previous study. The paper also addresses propellant consumption issue of the proposed control strategy.