Collision-Free Adaptive Constrained Tracking of Satellite Clusters under Time-Receding Horizons

The satellite cluster flying (SCF) technology is essential in contemporary space engineering, while escalating requirements and clustering scales pose challenges for control implementation. This article provides a low-complexity adaptive control scheme for asymptotic tracking of the SCF system, aiming to drive satellites to form a scalable formation lattice around the virtual global center. The topological relations denoted by graphic matrices are replaced with a set of well-defined bump functions, which are also utilized to generate finite cutoff potential functions for preventing collisions. Then, a set of time-receding horizons stitched with quadratic Lyapunov functions are presented for constrained dynamic performance, relaxing the initial dependencies and specifying the practically preset finite-time stability of the perturbed SCF throughout. In addition, by integrating specific inequality and adaptive estimators, disturbances and recursive derivatives are compensated online without complexity explosion. At last, simulations built upon a satellite cluster illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.