Control of Spacecraft Formation with Disturbance Rejection and Exponential Gains

We address the problem of state feedback translational motion control of a spacecraft formation through a modified sliding surface controller using variable gains and I^2 action for disturbance rejection. The exponential varying gains ensure faster convergence of the state trajectories during attitude maneuver while keeping the gains small (and the system less stiff) for station keeping. Integral action is introduced for rejection of disturbances with a constant nonzero mean such as aerodynamic drag. A direct consequence is a drop in energy consumption when affected by sensor noise and a decrease in size of the error states residual when operating close to the equilibrium point. A large number of simulation results are presented to show the control performance.