Robust Load-sharing Control of Spacecraft Formations

This paper focuses on the design of autonomous and collaborative control strategies to govern the relative distances among multiple spacecraft in formation with no ground intervention. A coordinate load-sharing control structure for formation flying and a methodology to control their dynamic models with slow t ime-varymg and uncertain parameters are the main objectives of this work. The method is applied to a deep space formation example, where the uncertainty in spacecraft fuel masses is also considered. Copyright O 2005 IFAC