Experimental Study for μ-class Control of Relative Position and Attitude for Synthetic Aperture Telescope Using Formation Flying Micro-satellites. Issue 2 (2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Suzumoto, Ryo; Ikari, Satoshi; Miyamura, Norihide; Nakasuka, Shinichi
• Is Part Of: IFAC-PapersOnLine. Volume 53:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 5701
• Page End: 5708
• Publication Date: 2020
• Subjects: Micro-Satellites -- Relative Position -- Attitude Control -- Formation Flying -- Synthetic Aperture Telescope -- GEO Remote Sensing -- Numerical Modeling; Automatic control -- Periodicals; 629.805
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.1597
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2405-8963

Abstract

Abstract: Earth remote sensing from geostationary orbit (GEO) realizes high time resolution that is essential for disaster monitoring; however, the spatial resolution is commonly worse than observation from low Earth orbit (LEO). In order to achieve high-resolution and high-frequency GEO remote sensing, we have proposed a "Formation Flying Synthetic Aperture Telescope (FFSAT)" with multiple micro-satellites. The FFSAT can improve the spatial resolution by using the technique of a synthetic aperture, and therefore the relative positions and attitudes between the optical units of each satellite must be controlled with an accuracy better than 1/10 of the observation wavelength. In order to verify feasibility of such highly accurate control, μ-class control experiments were conducted by using COTS components, and numerical models of the components were constructed. Results of the experiments were integrated into a software simulator, and the μ-class formation flying control of the entire FFSAT system was numerically evaluated. In this simulation, highly accurate control was achieved with dual-stage actuators, which consist of piezo actuators and thrusters. The simulation results show that the formation can be controlled in μ-class accuracy under some assumptions.