Angles-Only Cooperative Local Catalog Maintenance of Close-Proximity Satellite Systems

In space mission sets like on-orbit servicing and manufacturing, agents in close proximity may operate too close to yield resolved localization solutions to operators. This requires that the system maintain a catalog of its local neighborhood; however, this imposes a large burden on each agent to update its catalog. This paper considers the case of multiple satellites each maintaining their catalog. Specifically, this paper considers the case of numerous noncooperative objects and a collection of agents operating in the same local environment. The goal of each agent is to maintain their catalog of all bodies (objects and agents) within this neighborhood through onboard angles-only measurements and cooperative communication with the other agents. A central supervisor selects the target body for each agent, a local controller tracks the selected target body for each agent, and a local estimator coalesces both an agent’s measurements and state estimates provided by neighboring agents within the communication graph. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the supervisor’s ability to select an appropriate target subject to an uncertainty threshold, the controller’s ability to track the selected target, and the estimator’s ability to maintain an accurate and precise estimate of each of the bodies in the local environment.