Distributed attitude alignment in spacecraft formation flying

In this paper, we consider a distributed attitude alignment problem for a team of deep space formation flying spacecraft through local information exchange. We propose control laws for three different cases. In the first case, multiple spacecraft converge to their (possibly time-varying) desired attitudes while maintaining the same attitude or given relative attitudes during formation maneuvers under an undirected communication graph. In the second case, multiple spacecraft converge to the same rotation rate while aligning their attitudes during formation maneuvers under an undirected communication graph. In the third case, attitude alignment under a directed information exchange graph is addressed. Simulation results for attitude alignment among six spacecraft demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.