Luke Sauter & P L Palmer
Allowing satellite formations the flexibility to perform path planning operations onboard each spacecraft can significantly reduce the ground operations burden and increase the responsiveness of the formation to reconfiguration events. This paper develops a semi-analytic approach to rapid onboard fuel-minimized collision-free path generation for satellites in a formation. A sequential optimization approach to collision avoidance is examined. Through hardware testing and comparison with other approaches, this analytic method shows viability for onboard fuel-minimized collision-free path generation.
Paper: Collision Free Reconfiguration
Ref: Sauter, Luke & Palmer, P.L., IEEE Trans Aerospace & Electronic Systems, 48, No. 3, pp. 2638-2652, 2012.
Surrey Space Centre Research 