Coordinated Simultaneous Attitude Pointing for Multiple Satellites Under Formation Flying

Abstract

In this paper, attitude control laws for simultaneous pointing of multiple spacecrafts are considered under a formation flying scenario. The basic approach lies in adaptive feedback gains using relative attitude information or maneuver time approximation for coordinated attitude control. Each control law is targeted to balancing mean motion or to correcting system response to the slowest satellite. The control gain adaptation is constructed by two approaches. The first one is using variable damping gain to manipulate speed of a fast system response, and the second one uses alternate natural frequency of the system under control. The validity and stability of the proposed approaches are examined analytically and tested through numerical simulations.