Formation Control of Spacecraft Based on SE(3) With Asymmetric Saturated Input

In this paper, a set of integrated control problems for distributed spacecraft formation with input asymmetric constraints under external disturbances are studied. First, a new configuration error function is designed based on the compact nonlinear manifold
$SE(3)$
, and the dynamic model of the coupling of the orbit and attitude of the distributed spacecraft formation is established. Then, in order to ensure the thrust constraints of the spacecraft in different directions, a novel asymmetric saturation controller is designed. Secondly, to deal with the effects of non-smooth asymmetric saturation, a continuously differentiable asymmetric saturation model is used based on a Gaussian error function. Using the proposed control scheme, the desired velocity can be tracked and the desired formation created. Finally, the finite-time stability of the spacecraft formation is demonstrated using Lyapunov’s stability analysis, and the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is verified by numerical simulation results.