Passivity-based fractionated payload 6-DOF maneuver control using electromagnetic actuation

Employing fractionated spacecraft architecture with electromagnetic actuation into space missions can enhance resilience and flexibility since all subsystems of conventional monolithic spacecraft are separated as several modules to be easily replaced on-orbit when failure happens. Previous electromagnetic configuration used in fractionated spacecraft would render unexpected forces and torques which may undermine the stability of entire system. This paper considers the maneuver of a separated payload in a fractionated spacecraft architecture (FSA) using electromagnetic actuation with adaptive passivity-based control. The FSA consists of a fractionated payload module (FPM) and a supporting spacecraft module (SSM). Relative motion dynamics of FPM and SSM are formulated on SE(3). An adaptive passivity-based 6-DOF motion control scheme is established for FPM's translation and rotation tracking control simultaneously. The closed-loop equilibrium can be attained by the proposed passivity-based 6-DOF control scheme. The controller has no requirement for the precise inertia knowledge of FPM, which processes the robustness of the modelling errors. Numerical simulations are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.