Time Shift Governor for Coordinated Control of Two Spacecraft Formations

A parameter governor-based controller is applied to control a pair of satellites to an unforced periodic relative orbit in Hill's frame with the desired phasing thereby achieving and maintaining a two satellite formation while satisfying the imposed constraints. To accomplish this, the controller adjusts commanded time shifts to each satellite along the target trajectory. We refer to such a parameter governor as the time shift governor. Theoretical guarantees are presented for the convergence to the desired formation configuration for the case when the set of possible time shifts is finite. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the proposed approach.