Evaluation and Comparison of Three Fuel Optimal Impulsive Control Strategies for Satellite Formation Reconfiguration

The evaluation and comparison of three formation impulsive control schemes for satellite formation reconfiguration are researched by numerical simulations with the same conditions. These formation reconfiguration control strategies are Standard formation reconfiguration scheme using asynchronous method (SFRA), extended formation reconfiguration scheme using asynchronous method (EFRA), and Standard formation reconfiguration with synchronous way (SFRS). The total fuel consumptions and reconfiguration times of three reconfiguration algorithms are compared by numerical simulations. Through the evaluation and comparison of the three methods, the results show that both the SFRA and EFRA strategies have analytical solutions, as a result their calculation amount is relatively small, and they are simple and efficient for on board application. However, SFRS adopts numerical optimization method, which requires a large amount of calculation. By comparing the reconstruction times of the three methods, the conclusion is as follows: SFRA and EFRA have the same reconfiguration time, while the reconfiguration time of SFRS is the shortest. The comparison of fuel consumption shows that the fuel consumption of EFRA is the least; SFRA has the less fuel consumption, and SFRS has the most fuel consumption.