A novel and better path programming algorithm for reconfiguration of satellite formation configuration

The introduction of the full paper points out what we believe to be the shortcomings of Ref.4, authored by Michael Tillerson et al. Hence we propose a novel and better path programming algorithm. Section 1 explains the establishment of the dynamic model of satellite formation; in particular, we point out that eq. (2) expresses mathematically what is meant by Kronecker product. Section 2 discusses the optimization of satellite formation reconfiguration. Subsection 2.1, which has eqs. (4) through (8), explains the predictive control equation of the dynamic model. Subsection 2.2, which has eqs. (9) through (12), discusses the objective function that represents the total fuel consumption. Subsection 2.3, which has eqs. (13) through (22), discusses the constraint which is eq. (21); in particular, we point out that in subsection 2.3 we employ the nonlinear optimization technique. Section 3 gives the computer simulation results and their analysis. In section 3, we compare our novel and better algorithm with the method in Ref. 4. The comparison, presented in Figs. 1 and 2, shows preliminarily that our novel algorithm is better in that: (1) when the satellite formation is quickly maneuvered to the target configuration, the total fuel consumption of our algorithm is 17% less than that of Ref.4; (2) the fuel consumptions of five satellites are nearly the same for our algorithm.