1999 AFOSR Workshop on Dynamics and Control

Formation Flight of Micro-Satellite Clusters

Richard M. Murray (PI)
Jerry Marsden
California Institute of Technology

Meir Pachter
Air Force Institute of Technology

Abstract

We describe initial work in dynamics and control of microsatellite formations, aimed at a more complete understanding of the geometric structure of this class of dynamical systems and exploiting that structure for stabilization and reconfiguration of the formation. Our work to date is focused on studying the full nonlinear equations of motion to identify new behaviors that allow desireable formations to be flown with minimum energy.