Agent-based distributed simulation technology of satellite formation flying

Satellite formation flying has higher performance, higher reliability and lower costs comparing to the traditional single satellite. So it becomes a research hotspot in the field of aerospace in China and abroad over the past decade. This paper put thoughts of Agent-based modeling and simulation into satellite formation flying. It meets the autonomy demands of collaborative simulation of satellite formation. Multi-Agent System Development Platform JADE is used to design a Multi-Agent system of orbit tracking and circle flying model of satellite formation. It has a distributed collaborative structure. According to the situation that distance between the satellites is short, the model can be described as a following satellite flying around a reference satellite. Overall framework and concrete implementation method are shown in this paper. It provides an effective approach for distributed interactive simulation platform development.