Spacecraft formation maneuvering control using line-of-sight measurements

In this paper, In order to deal with the satellite formation maneuver problem including perturbations, a nonlinear equation of satellite relative motion including J₂ perturbation are derived. Then a sliding mode variable structure control scheme with matching uncertainty and disturbance is introduced using the LOS measurement, control scheme for formation maneuvering in LEO with small eccentricity reference orbit is designed, so the modeling error and disturbance is included. The resulting of control scheme is shown to be robust against uncertainties and perturbations and shows reasonable performance under measurement noise in ensuring entire-formation maneuvering by numerical simulations.