Rotational and translational integrated control for Inner-formation Gravity Measurement Satellite System

Inner-Formation Gravity Measurement Satellite System (IFGMSS) is used to explore the Earth gravity using two satellites in an inner-formation flying mode. To fulfill the mission, relative position of the two satellites is required to be zeroed and attitude of the outer satellite should be stabilized in real-time. This paper proposed an integrated control scheme for the IFGMSS, and the main idea is to use only thrusters to control the relative position and attitude. The integrated control loop contains a control law's module and a control allocation law's module. The control law based on the feedback linearization method makes nonlinear dynamics counteracted and uses PD control law to reformulate the dynamics into a linear form. The integrated control allocation law is designed to assign the commanded control force and moment to each thruster dynamically. We transfer the control allocation problem into a linear programming (LP) problem and use the Optimal Theory to calculate the corresponding thrust of each thruster. Finally, an IFGMSS mission is simulated, where the two satellites fly in a circle orbit with a 300 km's altitude. Results using the integrated control scheme and the traditional separated control scheme are compared and analyzed. It has been found that the integrated control scheme is superior to the separated control scheme in output ability, level of redundancy and fuel cost.

► A complete concept of integrated control using all-propulsion scheme for IFGMSS is proposed.
► Control law based on feed-back linearization is designed.
► Control allocation law according to Linear Programming is proposed.
► The advantage of integrated control than separated control is proved.
► A simulation is carried out considering both normal condition and saturated condition.