Relatiye Orbit Control Of Satellite Formation Flying

Satellite formation flying represents the concept of distributing the functionality ofa large and complex satellite among a group of small satellites which have a certainspatial configuration and operation cooperatively. Satellite formation flying is beingdeeply studied in the spaceflight domain for its great potential applications.This thesis addresses the relative orbit control of leader-follower satellite formationflying in a circular orbit. That is, our task is to design controller for the follower satelliteso that it can travel according to the desired relative orbit with respect to the leadersatellite. The main work is as follows.A finite-time control scheme is proposed for the ideal satellite formation flying inwhich the perturbation effects are not considered. A fast terminal sliding mode controlscheme is proposed for satellite formation flying in the presence of uncertain boundeddisturbance. A fast terminal sliding mode adaptive control scheme is proposed forsatellite formation flying in the presence of parametric uncertainty and uncertainbounded disturbance. An output feedback adaptive control scheme is proposed forsatellite formation flying without velocity measurements.Lyapunov stability arguments are utilized to prove the expected stability.Numerical simulations have been performed to show the improved performance of theproposed schemes.