Power-Efficiency and Scalability Analysis of Magnetically-Actuated Satellite Swarms via Convex Optimization

TL;DR

This paper introduces a convex optimization framework to evaluate power efficiency and scalability of magnetically-actuated satellite swarms, highlighting their potential for large-scale, power-efficient space systems.

Contribution

It develops a convex optimization-based method to analyze power consumption in satellite swarms with magnetic actuation, addressing nonlinear electromagnetic constraints.

Findings

Increasing satellite count improves formation-keeping power efficiency.

Magnetic interactions enable propellant-free formation control.

Swarm architectures are a power-efficient alternative to traditional methods.

Abstract

This correspondence presents a convex-optimization-based evaluation framework of satellite-swarm-based apertures maintained by magnetic-field interactions. Spaceborne distributed apertures are composed of multiple satellites and are attractive for scientific and commercial missions because their scalability enables high-gain, narrow-beam, and large-aperture capabilities beyond the launch-size limitations. A key challenge is that the long-term maintenance of such virtual structures requires consistent formation control amid unstable orbital dynamics, and magnetic interactions generated by satellite-mounted magnetorquers offer a desirable propellant-free position-control strategy. However, the nonlinearities of the electromagnetic force and torque model lead to a nonconvex power-consumption constraint, making system-level configuration analysis difficult. To address this issue, we develop a convex optimization-based framework to analyze the power consumption of large magnetically actuated satellite swarms. The resulting analysis shows that increasing the number of satellites can improve formation-keeping power efficiency. This indicates that magnetically actuated swarm architectures provide a power-efficient alternative to the conventional few-satellite electromagnetic formation-flight concept for constructing large-scale space systems.