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James H. Meub
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Advisor: Henry J. Pernicka
Abstract
Satellite formation flight has become a research topic of growing interest as an increasing number of missions require fractionated spacecraft to achieve scientific objectives. Formation flight missions require, in some cases, extreme precision in both orbit determination and control. Many control techniques have been developed in an effort to assure optimal stationkeeping performance, however, an accurate comparison between control techniques of various types has yet to be fully realized. Factors such as robustness, flyability, efficiency and computational expense all factor into the desirability of various controllers in certain situations. In most stationkeeping circumstances, a linear controller performs in a near-optimal fashion when the cost equation weights are tuned correctly. This paper describes the derivation and comparison of three stationkeeping controllers applied to the M-SAT LEO formation flight mission.
James Meub was born in Palo Alto California and raised in Vermont before enrolling in the undergraduate aerospace engineering program at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. The author graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in 2009 from Missouri S&T. He is currently enrolled at Missouri S&T and is pursuing his Master's of Science in aerospace engineering.
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