6-DOF formation keeping control for an invariant three-craft triangular electromagnetic formation

Spacecraft relative motion with inter-craft electromagnetic force has distinct advantages, and its invariant shapes that are convenient for formation keeping ensure some potential significant applications. However, the electromagnetic actuators affect both the relative trajectory and attitude motion, complicating related researches on issues of invariant shape design and formation control. In this paper, the formation keeping problem for an invariant three-craft triangular electromagnetic formation is investigated on the basis of a 6-DOF full nonlinear dynamic model. Moreover, a combined control scheme consisting of feed-forward and feed-back control components is proposed to handle the high nonlinearity, strong coupling, model uncertainties and external disturbances. The feed-forward component is obtained through desired invariant shape design which is complicated by the coupling and superposition effects of any two distinct magnetic dipoles, and the feed-back component is developed with a combination of linear feed-back controller by the LQR method and active disturbance rejection by the extended state observer. Finally, the numerical simulation is presented to verify the feasibility and validity of the proposed 6-DOF combined control scheme.