The relative position control in formation flying satellites using super-conducting mangets

Abstract

Formation flying satellites using electromagnetic force generated by super-conducting magnets (SCM)123 have been proposed against the mission lifetime restriction associsated with the finite fuel supply caused by the use of thrusters. Electromagnetic force are generated by electric power, which is supplied through solar array paddles in satellite-system, therefore, mission lifetime is unlimited by the fuel supply. For such formation flights in LEO, the authors have proposed the relative position control method based on the phase difference in coil currents, because coil's currents should be sinusoidal in order to avoid disturbance torque by the earthmagnetism. The effectiveness is shown in numerical simulations with the relative position controller already designed.4 But it is assumed that the phase of sinusoidal current can be shifted freely. This paper refers to the practical method for shifting the phase of sinusoidal currents. The electric circuit, phase-shifting circuit (PSC), to achieve this aim was proposed and the performance was confirmed with numerical simulations. And the relative position control including the physical model of PSC was evaluated with simulations. Moreover, some experiments for verification of PSC's performance were carried out.