Artificial potential field based autonomous guidance & navigation for a planar constellation of satellites

Ring is a kind of formation which is used for star or delta type planar constellations especially for low earth orbiting satellites to provide worldwide coverage. In this work, the proposed solution is based on artificial potential fields which are generated by using bivariate functions to control the satellite constellation geometry and the inter-satellite spacing. Bivariate potential functions and the sigmoid limiting functions are used for generating the limited and combined vector fields that control the velocity and heading of satellites in formation. Satellites in ring formation must be distributed in equally spacing to provide collision avoidance and best cover needs with minimum number of satellites. In this paper a novel, autonomous ring formation and station keeping method is considered for satellites by using artificial potential field based guidance and navigation functions. The success of the approach is demonstrated with simulation studies.