Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences

Volume

71

Issue

14

Publisher

Springer

Publication Date

3-7-2024

Journal Article Version

Accepted Manuscript

First Page

1

Last Page

33

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Abstract

This paper presents a model predictive control based framework that is used in conjunction with a polytope boundary constraint and the Hill- Clohessy-wiltshire equations to maintain a desired formation of a cluster of spacecraft while also allowing freedom to maneuver within the allowable bounds. A fuel optimal guidance trajectory is generated and the model predictive control framework controls to this desired trajectory. The operational polytope boundaries enable the predictive framework of the model predictive control to be used to make small maneuvers to correct perturbations from its desired trajectory. The boundaries are designed such that no two agents have overlapping regions, allowing the vehicles to execute avoidance strategies without continually maintaining the trajectories of other agents. The model predictive control frame- work combined with the convex polytope boundary enables a scalable method that can support clusters of satellites in safely achieving mission objectives while minimizing fuel usage. As part of the implementation of this control scheme, this paper compares the fuel usage for a three spacecraft system. This work also compares the computation and fuel requirements for L1, L2, and L∞ norm formulations of the framework.

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