Cooperative control of multiple satellites via consensus

The current work develops a distributed controller for steering a satellite cluster to the same orbit as well as for assembly under limited low thrust. The underlying concept is using consensus theory to characterize the control objective in a multi-agent system. This concept is leveraged by implementing the governing dynamics in a control-affine form as described by Gauss's variational equations. For general orbital transfer, the controller is asymptotically stable. The assembly is accomplished by changing of variables, as well as in a two-phase control process by separately controlling subsets of orbital elements based on the dynamics structure. Numerical simulations validate the analysis and demonstrate the results.