Adaptive Double-Layer Continuous Super-Twisting Control of a Satellite Formation

As an emerging prominent standard, CubeSats, or more generally, microsatellites continue to demonstrate an increase in capability and advantages over their monolithic counterparts. In the past few years, microsatellites have become increasingly more capable and can accumulate vast amounts of data and thus must leverage novel methods to downlink the data. Certain technologies to address this show promise such as small satellite technologies, satellite formation control, and antenna array technologies. Antenna arrays allow for pattern multiplication which can facilitate increased directivity, and also active control which enables more efficient communications. Typically, active antenna arrays, or phased arrays are implemented on a single satellite. Recent methods such as antenna remoting and RF-over-fiber technologies open up the potential to develop antenna arrays with individual elements that are no longer required to be physically collocated. This idea, paired with current state-of-the-art small satellite technologies, new methods in robust nonlinear control, and new dual quaternion methods of formation control, allow for physically dispersed satellite antenna arrays. In this paper, a physically distributed, dual quaternion-based antenna formation array is proposed for satellite communication for the first time. A novel adaptive second order sliding mode control algorithm is employed to control the considered antenna array. The efficacy of the control algorithm is verified via simulations.