Spacecraft formation flying: A review and new results on state feedback control

This paper presents a review of previous work within the field of spacecraft formation flying, including modeling approaches and controller design. In addition, five new approaches for tracking control of relative translational motion between two spacecraft in a leader–follower formation are derived. One PD controller with feedback linearisation is derived and shown to result in an exponentially stable equilibrium point of the closed loop system. Four nonlinear controllers are derived and proved by using Lyapunov theory and Matrosov's theorem to leave the closed loop system uniformly globally asymptotically stable. Results from the simulation of the system with the derived controllers are presented, and compared with respect to power consumption and tracking performance.