Differential Aerodynamic Force-Based Formation Control of Nanosatellites Using Yaw Angle Deviation

Abstract

This paper investigates a formation control technique for low-Earth-orbit nanosatellites based on the differential aerodynamic drag and lift. An innovative method of using only the yaw angle deviation, instead of the three-axis attitude rotation, is proposed to simultaneously control the in-plane and out-of-plane relative motions. This method can be used for the formation control of the Earth-pointing satellite. A control scheme consisting of four steps is designed considering complex input constraints. In this scheme, two control inputs are defined based on the predicted atmospheric density, and the explicit expressions of their time-varying feasible regions are analyzed. To obtain the yaw angle of each nanosatellite, a yaw angle solution algorithm based on the grid interpolation method is designed with online solving nonlinear optimization avoided. A dynamic surface control algorithm based on the hyperbolic tangent function and a linear model predictive control algorithm are, respectively, used to limit two control inputs within their feasible regions. In addition, a nonlinear finite-time disturbance observer is used to track the total system disturbance. Numerical simulations are carried out for along-track and circular formations, in which the uncertainties of aerodynamic forces, the attitude dynamics, and the unknown perturbation are taken into account.