Formation Flying: Accommodating Nonlinearity and Eccentricity Perturbations

Relative motion of satellites exploiting the super-integrability of Kepler’s problem

“…Important and recent references include [1,15] for the linear theory, [5,9,17,18,25] for inclusion of higher order geopotential terms and [7,12,19,23] for nonlinearity effects. One of the few common threads within the existing literature on relative motion, is that virtually all of the methods use a rotating and accelerating local coordinate frame.…”

Novel Expressions of Equations of Relative Motion and Control in Keplerian Orbits

“…Some of them are focusing on the spacecraft formation flying problem of maintaining the relative orbit of a cluster of spacecraft [4][5][6][7][8][9]. In this problem, a cluster of spacecraft is supposed to maintain their formation over the entire life span of the spacecraft, and thus prediction and control of relative motion is significantly sensitive to relative orbit modeling errors [9].…”

“…In recent years, a number of research works have been published which propose relative motion controls in orbits [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Some of them are focusing on the spacecraft formation flying problem of maintaining the relative orbit of a cluster of spacecraft [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

Triangle Formation Design in Eccentric Orbits Using Pseudospectral Optimal Control

“…Over the last decade, many methods have been proposed for analyzing the nonlinear effects in the relative dynamics and the drift induced by the eccentricity of the reference orbits. [5][6][7][8] These analytic design methods are usually based on linearization or high-order approximations of the relative dynamics to reduce the nonlinear effects. When one allows eccentric reference orbits and includes the J 2 effects, the relative motion requires more involved analysis.…”