• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.58.4-59
• /
• 2021

This presentation introduces Korea's SNIPE (Small scale magNespheric and Ionospheric Plasma Experiment) mission, formation flying CubeSat constellation. Observing particles and waves on a single satellite suffers from inherent space-time ambiguity. To observe spatial and temporal variations of the micro-scale plasma structures on the topside ionosphere, four 6U CubeSats (~ 10 kg) will be launched into a polar orbit of the altitude of ~500 km in 2021. The distances of each satellite will be controlled from 10 km to more than 100 km by formation flying algorithm. The SNIPE mission is equipped with identical scientific instruments, solid-state telescope, magnetometer, and Langmuir probe. All the payloads have a high temporal resolution (sampling rates of about 10 Hz). Iridium modules provide an opportunity to upload changes in operational modes when geomagnetic storms occur. SNIPE's observations of the dimensions, occurrence rates, amplitudes, and spatiotemporal evolution of polar cap patches, field-aligned currents (FAC), radiation belt microbursts, and equatorial and mid-latitude plasma blobs and bubbles will determine their significance to the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere interaction and quantify their impact on space weather.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.36 no.9
• /
• pp.859-866
• /
• 2008

A guidance scheme for controlling the relative geometry of multiple flight vehicle formation flying is proposed. Each flight vehicle in the formation takes the roles of leader and follower simultaneously except for the formation leader. In this scheme, the flight commands for a leader are shared by all the followers and this leaders to a synchronized flight of all flight vehicles comprising the formation. Lyapunov stability theorem is used to obtain the guidance law. High fidelity nonlinear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed guidance law using a reconnaissance and surveillance mission example.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.99-110
• /
• 2009

The main purpose of the current research is to developments a real-time Hardware In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation testbed for the satellite formation flying navigation and orbit control. The HIL simulation testbed is integrated for demonstrations and evaluations of navigation and orbit control algorithms. The HIL simulation testbed is composed of Environment computer, GPS simulator, Flight computer and Visualization computer system. GPS measurements are generated by a SPIRENT GSS6560 multi-channel RF simulator to produce pseudorange, carrier phase measurements. The measurement date are transferred to Satrec Intiative space borne GPS receiver and exchanged by the flight computer system and subsequently processed in a navigation filter to generate relative or absolute state estimates. These results are fed into control algorithm to generate orbit controls required to maintain the formation. These maneuvers are informed to environment computer system to build a close simulation loop. In this paper, the overall design of the HIL simulation testbed for the satellite formation flying navigation and control is presented. Each component of the testbed is then described. Finally, a LEO formation navigation and control simulation is demonstrated by using virtual scenario.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.36 no.10
• /
• pp.988-995
• /
• 2008

A consensus-based feedback linearization method is proposed to maintain a specified time-varying geometric configuration for formation flying of multiple autonomous vehicles. In this approach, there exists no explicit leader in the team, and the proposed control strategy requires only the local neighbor-to-neighbor information between vehicles. The information flow topology between the vehicles is defined by Graph Laplacian matrix, and the formation flying can be achieved by the proposed feedback linearization with consensus algorithm. The stability analysis of the proposed controller is also performed via eigenvalue analysis for the closed-looop system. Numerical simulation is performed for rotary-wing type micro aerial vehicles to validate the performance of the proposed controller.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.36 no.6
• /
• pp.565-573
• /
• 2008

The behavior-based decentralized approach is considered for multi-UAV formation flight. It is assumed that each UAV has its own mission of flying to a specified region, while the distances between UAVs should be maintained. These two requirements may conflict with each other. To design the controller, coupled dynamics approach is applied to multi-UAVs with an assumption that each UAV can communicate with each other to share the state-information. Control gain matrices are optimized to acquire better performances of formation flying. To validate the proposed control approach, numerical simulation is performed for the waypoint-passing mission of multi-UAVs.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.61 no.2
• /
• pp.284-290
• /
• 2012

This paper addresses a new passive target tracking problem using the range differences measured by cooperative UAVs. In order to solve the range difference based passive target tracking problem within the framework of linear robust state estimation, the uncertain linear measurement model which contains the stochastic parameter uncertainty is derived by using the noisy range difference measurements. To cope with the performance degradation due to the stochastic parameter uncertainty, the recently developed non-conservative robust Kalman filtering technique [1] is applied. For the cruciform formation flying UAVs, the relationship between the target tracking performance and the measurement errors is quantitatively analyzed. The proposed filter has practical advantages over the classical nonlinear filters because, for its recursive linear structure, it can provide satisfactory convergence properties and is suitable for real-time multiple UAVs applications. Through the simulations, the usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.287-293
• /
• 2018

This paper presents a satellite relative navigation strategy for formation flying, which chooses an appropriate navigation algorithm according to the operating environment. Not only global positioning system (GPS) measurements, but laser measurements can also be utilized to determine the relative positions of satellites. Laser data is used solely or together with GPS measurements. Numerical simulations were conducted to compare the relative navigation algorithm using only laser data and laser data combined with GPS data. If an accurate direction of laser pointing is estimated, the relative position of satellites can be determined using only laser measurements. If not, the combined algorithm has better performance, and is irrelevant to the precision of the relative angle data between two satellites in spherical coordinates. Within 10 km relative distance between satellites, relative navigation using double difference GPS data makes more precise relative position estimation results. If the simulation results are applied to the relative navigation strategy, the proper algorithm can be chosen, and the relative position of satellites can be estimated precisely in changing mission environments.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.283-290
• /
• 2008

Satellite formation flying can provide the platform for interferometric observation to acquire the precise data and ensure the flexibility for space mission. This paper presents development and verification of an algorithm to estimate the baseline between formation flying satellites. To estimate a baseline(relative navigation) in real time, EKF(Extended Kalman Filter) and UKF(Unscented Kalman Filter) are used. Measurements for updating a state-vector in Kalman Filter are GPS single difference data. In results, The position errors in estimated baseline are converged to less than ${\pm}1m$ in both EKF and UKF. And as using the two types of Kalman filter, it is clear that the unscented Kalman filter shows a relatively better performance than the extended Kalman filter by comparing an efficiency to the model which has a non-linearity.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.44 no.5
• /
• pp.416-422
• /
• 2016

This paper presents preliminary performance analysis of a satellite formation flying testbed, which is under development by Astrodynamics and Control Laboratory, Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University. A model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) with a first-order reference model is chosen to enhance the response of reaction wheel system which is subject to uncertainties caused by unmodelled dynamics and measurement noise. In addition, an on-line parameter estimation (OPE) technique based on the least square is combined to eliminate the effect of angular measurement noise by estimating the moment of inertia. Both numerical simulations and hardware experiments with MRAC support the effectiveness and applicability of the adaptive control scheme, which maintains the tracking error below $0.25^{\circ}$ for the entire time span. However, the high frequency control input generated in hardware experiment strongly suggests design modifications to reduce the effect of deadzone.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.21-34
• /
• 2005

The initial conditions that generate bounded motion in eccentric reference orbit are determined for satellite formation flying. Because Hill's equations cannot describe the relative motion between two satellites in eccentric orbit, a new relative dynamics utilizing the nonlinearity and eccentricity correction for Hill's initial conditions is implemented. The constraint that matches angular rates of chief and deputy satellites is used to obtain the bounded motion between them. The constraint can be applied to satellite formation motions in eccentric orbit, since it implicates J2 perturbation due to the central body's aspherical gravitational forces. The periodic bounded motions are analyzed for the orbit with the eccentricity of less than 0.05 and about 0.5 km relative distance between chief and deputy satellites. It is mainly illustrated that the satellite formations in small eccentric orbits can have hounded motions; consequently, the formation can be kept by matching angular rates of the satellites. These results demonstrate an useful method that reduces the cost for operating satellites by providing effective initial conditions for satellite formation flying in eccentric orbit.