Control Allocation for Hybrid Coulomb Spacecraft Formations

TL;DR

This paper introduces an algorithm for hybrid Coulomb spacecraft formations that reduces propellant use by maximizing Coulomb force generation, addressing nonlinear challenges with a matrix rank minimization approach.

Contribution

It presents a novel control allocation algorithm that efficiently minimizes propellant consumption in Coulomb spacecraft formations using a trace heuristic.

Findings

Propellant use reduced by approximately 40% in numerical tests.

Algorithm effectively handles nonlinear Coulomb force constraints.

Demonstrates improved efficiency over thruster-only reconfigurations.

Abstract

This paper proposes an algorithm which can be used in hybrid Coulomb spacecraft formations to minimize propellant by maximizing the amount of force that is generated by Coulomb forces. This problem is difficult due to the nonlinearities inherent in Coulomb's law. The problem is posed as a series of matrix rank minimization problems which can be solved efficiently using a trace heuristic. A numerical example is provided which shows that, using the proposed control allocation algorithm, the amount of propellant required to perform a reconfiguration maneuver is reduced by approximately 40% compared to using solely thrusters.