ELECTROMAGNETIC FORMATION FLIGHT

摘要

The ultimate limiter of mission lifetime for current space systems is onboard propellant supply. Spacecraft clusters that are insensitive to their center of mass location can lift this constraint by using internally generated electromagnetic forces between vehicles as an alternative formation control. Such systems include rendezvous and docking applications and sparsely distributed apertures for interferometry. The dipole nature of the electromagnetic force allows for full control of the relative degrees of freedom, position and orientation, provided reaction wheels or control moment gyros are used for angular momentum storage or control. This paper briefly presents the background research in this area at the MIT Space Systems Laboratory, and develops the theory behind electromagnetic formation flight under the far field approximation, giving examples of the 2-D and 3-D dynamics of multiple spacecraft clusters. Discussion of recent work on determining dipole configurations is included.