Decentralized control for satellite formation using local relative measurements only

This paper introduces a decentralized design technique for satellite formation using algebraic graph theories. Each satellite controls itself using the relative states describing its position and velocity relative to neighboring satellites it can sense. The formation control problem with n satellites is thus reduced into stabilization problem of single satellite with the identical relative dynamics, individualized by a specific scalar parameter. This scalar parameter takes the nonzero eigenvalues of a Laplacian matrix which represents the topology of relative measurements among all satellites. The modified relative dynamics can be viewed as linear system with uncertain parameters and an optimal guaranteed cost control law can be applied. Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed decentralized formation control strategy for satellite formation flying. 1