Compound optimal docking of multiple spacecrafts with formation reconfiguration

The time and control effort optimization for docking of multiple spacecrafts is considered. The aim is to maintain the control effort within certain bounds and achieve docking in minimum time. The approach is to begin with a formation reconfiguration of multiple spacecrafts with no control energy constraints, then consider a simple formation of spacecrafts at different distances within control energy bounds. The time for the docking is optimized in these conditions. This paper aims at combined time and control effort optimization while docking in square formation. This can be extended for the former unsymmetrical formation reconfiguration also. The results obtained are validated with the help of simulations.