Fuel Efficiency of Fully and Underconstrained Coulomb Formations in Slightly Elliptic Reference Orbits

The Coulomb formation in slightly elliptic reference orbits for two different two-craft formation geometries is studied. The fully constrained formation requires both spacecraft to be aligned along the nadir direction. The underconstrained formation only requires the spacecraft to maintain a constan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems 2021-12, Vol.57 (6), p.4171-4187
Main Authors: Memon, Muhammad Wasif, Nazari, Morad, Seo, Dongeun, Butcher, Eric A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
constrained motion analysis and control
Constraints
Coulomb formation
elliptic reference orbit
Energy efficiency
Force
Fuel consumption
Fuel economy
fuel efficiency
Fuels
fully and underconstrained formations
Maintenance
Mathematical model
Nonlinear control
Optimal control
Orbits
Plasmas
Space vehicles
Spacecraft
Thrusters
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Summary:The Coulomb formation in slightly elliptic reference orbits for two different two-craft formation geometries is studied. The fully constrained formation requires both spacecraft to be aligned along the nadir direction. The underconstrained formation only requires the spacecraft to maintain a constant separation distance allowing each spacecraft to rotate freely on the surface of a sphere. The Udwadia-Kalaba (U-K) equations of constrained motion are applied along with a constraint stabilization method to obtain the minimum integrated control effort required for formation maintenance in both scenarios, where a logic is introduced to determine the maximum Coulomb force. In addition, two nonlinear optimal control strategies are applied for formation achievement and maintenance. For each formation geometry, the fuel efficiency as measured by the integrated control effort of the thrusters obtained using the U-K formulation is compared to that obtained using nonlinear optimal control strategies.
ISSN:0018-9251
1557-9603
DOI:10.1109/TAES.2021.3090920