Application of Synchronization to Cooperative Control and Formation Flight of Spacecraft

This article presents a simple synchronization framework with application to synchronization control of formation flying spacecraft. A dynamical network of multiple Lagrangian systems is constructed by adding diffusive couplings to otherwise freely flying spacecraft. The proposed tracking control law synchronizes an arbitrary number of spacecraft into a common time-varying trajectory with global exponential convergence. The proposed strategy is much simpler than earlier work in terms of both the computational load and the required signals. Furthermore, in contrast with prior work which used simple double integrator models, the proposed method permits highly nonlinear systems and is further extended to adaptive synchronization, partial-state coupling, and time-delayed communications.