Neighboring Optimum Feedback Control Law for Earth-Orbiting Formation-Flying Spacecraft

This paper develops a feedback control law that guarantees neighboring fuel-optimality of the reconfiguration of a formation of Earth-orbiting formation-flying spacecraft. It aims for the case in which a specific formation is to be achieved at a specific true anomaly. It guarantees neighboring fuel-optimality of such a reconfiguration maneuver, assuming that the formation evolves in the vicinity of an uncontrolled reference trajectory. It is in the semi-analytic form, as only one time-varying gain matrix needs to be computed before the maneuver. It allows a fuel consumption/formation accuracy tradeoff with the selection of only one scalar gain. Simulations compare the performance of this controller with the linear-quadratic regulator and the mean orbit elements controller in the context of a 1 km size formation reconfiguration. Simulations show that this neighboring optimum controller can perform the maneuver with better accuracy while spending as much or less propellant than the other controllers. [PUBLISHER ABSTRACT]