Coordinated Attitude Control of Satellite Formation Based on Directed Communication Topology

Abstract

The satellite formation is no longer limited by the physical structure of a single satellite, and the SAR payloads for transmitting and receiving signals can be placed on different formation members, thereby forming a configuration with a long baseline and a large aperture in space. The high precision, high stability and fast maneuverability of satellite formation attitude coordination control are the prerequisites to maintain this configuration. Based on the directed communication topology, this paper will study the satellite formation attitude cooperative control problem. Quaternions are used to describe the relative kinematics and dynamic equations of formation satellites. The application of algebraic graph theory in the communication of satellite formation members is studied, and the topological structure of directed communication among formation members is described based on this theoretical basis. Considering the state retention and formation retention of satellite formations at the same time, three sliding mode controllers are designed. Firstly, a sliding mode controller with a symbolic function control law is designed. The simulation results show that there is a severe jitter phenomenon under the influence of external disturbance torque. A saturated function sliding mode controller is further designed, and the high frequency jitter is effectively suppressed. Finally, in order to improve the rapid maneuverability of the formation satellites, a limited-time attitude cooperative controller is designed based on the fast terminal sliding mode theory, which significantly shortens the maneuvering time.