Robust Closed-form Framework for Drag-Propulsive Control of Formation Flight
Abstract
To conserve propellant, Distributed Space Systems (DSS) can leverage environmental forces to produce low cost relative forces, such as atmospheric drag in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This work maximizes this strategy by developing robust, closed-form algorithms for optimal "hybrid" control, defined here as complementing the magnitude and directionality deficiencies of differential drag with the superior control authority of propulsive maneuvers within the same control window. The use of drag introduces a significant source of dynamic uncertainty to the control problem, primarily from inaccurate atmospheric density modelling. This paper develops a robust control architecture that periodically re-solves the remaining drag maneuver plan in a diminishing horizon policy, rejecting operational and navigation errors while retaining the cost savings offered by differential drag. The approach is built upon reachable set theory, a control analysis technique that provides conditions for optimality for Linear Time Variant (LTV) systems with norm-like cost functions and optimally decouples hybrid control into separate propulsive and differential drag sub-problems. The optimality conditions are leveraged to prove the asymptotic Lyapunov stability of ideal reachable set-based control solutions and derive error bounds on this stability. A covariance analysis on the primary sources of error in hybrid control determines that the dominating source of uncertainty is the atmospheric density model. This conclusion allows the bounds on Lyapunov stability to be completely met by simply conditioning the atmospheric density value used in the control solutions. The derived Lyapunov stability bounds and performance of the algorithm are demonstrated experimentally in high fidelity full-force orbital simulations of the upcoming Space Weather Reconfigurable Multiscale Experiment (SWARM-EX) mission.
Related
- Closed-form Optimal Solutions for Propulsive-Differential Drag Control of Spacecraft Swarms
- Closed-form Optimal Propulsive-Differential Drag Control for Large Reconfigurations of Spacecraft Swarms
- On a problem of A. N. Skiba and L. A. Shemetkov concerning Sn-closed subformations of a one-generated formation
- Robust Event-Triggered Formation Tracking of Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Aperiodic Communication Outages
- Energy-optimal predictive control of discrete-time port-Hamiltonian systems: Closed-loop practical stability
BibTeX
@misc{hunter2026robust,
title = {{Robust Closed-form Framework for Drag-Propulsive Control of Formation Flight}},
author = {Matthew Hunter and Simone D'Amico},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.02321},
eprint = {2611.02321},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.02321},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Robust Closed-form Framework for Drag-Propulsive Control of Formation Flight
AU - Matthew Hunter
AU - Simone D'Amico
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/02
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.02321
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.02321
AB - To conserve propellant, Distributed Space Systems (DSS) can leverage environmental forces to produce low cost relative forces, such as atmospheric drag in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This work maximizes this strategy by developing robust, closed-form algorithms for optimal "hybrid" control, defined here as complementing the magnitude and directionality deficiencies of differential drag with the superior control authority of propulsive maneuvers within the same control window. The use of drag introduces a significant source of dynamic uncertainty to the control problem, primarily from inaccurate atmospheric density modelling. This paper develops a robust control architecture that periodically re-solves the remaining drag maneuver plan in a diminishing horizon policy, rejecting operational and navigation errors while retaining the cost savings offered by differential drag. The approach is built upon reachable set theory, a control analysis technique that provides conditions for optimality for Linear Time Variant (LTV) systems with norm-like cost functions and optimally decouples hybrid control into separate propulsive and differential drag sub-problems. The optimality conditions are leveraged to prove the asymptotic Lyapunov stability of ideal reachable set-based control solutions and derive error bounds on this stability. A covariance analysis on the primary sources of error in hybrid control determines that the dominating source of uncertainty is the atmospheric density model. This conclusion allows the bounds on Lyapunov stability to be completely met by simply conditioning the atmospheric density value used in the control solutions. The derived Lyapunov stability bounds and performance of the algorithm are demonstrated experimentally in high fidelity full-force orbital simulations of the upcoming Space Weather Reconfigurable Multiscale Experiment (SWARM-EX) mission.
ER -