A study on formation control with relative information and information propagation structure of system

In formation flight missions, it is very important to control and keep the relative positions of spacecrafts. Although there have been many researches on the relative position control, most of them assumes that each spacecraft uses the absolute information about its position and velocity. In this case, various optimizations with the absolute information are possible. However, in order to keep the formation strictly and to avoid the collisions, the feedback control with the relative information between the members is effective. The formations of birds, insects and fish and automatic control of cars are classified as this control system. In this control system, the information propagation structure of the system as well as the local control law of each member determines the control performance of the system. This information propagation structure means the adjacency relation of the formation, that is, "whose relative information can each spacecraft acquire". In this study, the information propagation structure of the formation is focused on and how the information propagation structure influences the behavior of the formation is investigated.