Energy-efficient control of nanosatellites during distributed region formation flying

In this paper, we present an energy-efficient method for distributed region formation flying of nanosatellites. The proposed framework consists of two concurrent sub-schemes that include estimation and formation. In the estimation sub-scheme, unlike the existing methods on satellite formation flying, that assume the availability of the reference orbital elements to all followers, here, a distributed estimator is developed so that the follower nanosatellites estimate the position of the leader in its orbital slot. In the formation sub-scheme, we consider a region formation strategy which is an efficient method in dealing with the formation of a large number of nanosatellites. We propose an optimal region following formation method based on the receding horizon control (RHC) using the estimated reference orbital elements. Subsequently, an algorithm is presented to solve the proposed energy-efficient formation flying method. Finally, the simulation result is presented that illustrates the purposed method improves the power consumption for each nanosatellite with respect to the existing non-optimal region formation flying controllers.