Leader-follower type relative position keeping in satellite formation flying via robust exponential stabilization

Satellite formation flying is an essential technology in both the current and the future aerospace industry. Conducting a fast and safe flying formation between satellites is always a key requirement for successful mission accomplishment. This paper addresses a leaderfollower type relative position keeping in satellite formation flying via a novel robust exponential stabilization. This paper establishes an exponentially convergent relative position keeping taking account of various external disturbances that cannot be modeled into current formation dynamics, along with a set of time-varying model parameters and measurement noises. The condition for an exponential convergence is established by decomposing the positive definite matrix used in Lyapunov function candidate into several element-wise submatrices. Through numerical simulations, the effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.