Distributed adaptive synchronization for multiple spacecraft formation flying around Lagrange point orbits

This paper presents a distributed adaptive control framework for multiple spacecraft formation flying around Lagrange point orbits, which account for unmeasurable velocities and (spacecraft) mass uncertainties. The nominal trajectory for the formation system is a halo orbit parameterized by Fourier series expansions. Such an explicit, albeit approximate, description of the nominal trajectory facilitates each spacecraft in formation to include the relative state information into a cooperative feedback control system design, so that the relative motion can be driven towards a desired trajectory while maintaining a group synchronization during the maneuver. The developed distributed control strategies rely on the protocols formulated on an undirected topology with mutual information interactions, utilizing every available neighbor-to-neighbor communication data couplings, in order to improve the reliability of the formation. Numerical simulations show that the proposed adaptive control laws guarantee global asymptotic convergence and system robustness.