Nanosatellites Formation Flying Control Approaches Overview

Abstract

The paper considers various approaches nanosatellites formation flying control, presents dynamic models of the motion of a group of nanosatellites, considers various algorithms for controlling relative angular and translational motions, taking into account the specifics of small satellites and limited inter-satellite communication capabilities. The paper discusses various approaches to the formation flying control, including those using perspective methods that do not require the fuel consumption. With a large number of spacecraft in a group, a new class of space systems appears, defined as a swarm. The main difficulty in implementing a swarm formation flying of satellites is navigation and control of the mutual relative motion of an individual satellite in a swarm, taking into account the fundamental impossibility of having information about the phase state vector of each swarm element. The features of decentralized algorithms for controlling the satellites swarm motion are considered and the dynamics of the swarm is investigated.