Abstract: In formation flying control, the cooperative control methods, considered superior to the leader-follower control approaches, have gained increasingly extensive application. A cyclic pursuit strategy based cooperative control algorithm is proposed with its advantages analyzed. Since the formation center is constrained by initial positions of the satellite in formation, virtual beacon guidance is integrated to better control the formation. A three-dimensional mathematical model of relative motion is built, and two control strategies are proposed. One is that all the spacecraft in formation are controlled by the cooperative control method based on cyclic pursuit and virtual beacon guidance. The other is that only one spacecraft is under the cooperative control method, while other spacecraft are controlled only under cyclic pursuit strategy. Simulation results validate the feasibility of the proposed cooperative control method. The strategy of all spacecraft moving under the cooperative control is better. The formation can achieve the configuration adjustment to fly in the expected orbits.

Key words: spacecraft formation, cooperative control, cyclic pursuit, virtual beacon, configuration adjustment