Title :
Commanding and controlling satellite clusters
Author :
Zetocha, Paul ; Self, Lance ; Wainwright, Ross ; Burns, Rich ; Brito, Margarita ; Surka, Derek
Author_Institution :
Air Force Res. Lab., Kirtland AFB, NM, USA
Abstract :
Many organizations, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Department of Defense, want to use constellations or fleets of autonomous spacecraft working together to accomplish complex mission objectives. At the Air Force Research Laboratory´s Space Vehicles Directorate, we are developing architectures for commanding and controlling a cluster of cooperating satellites through autonomous software development for the TechSat 21 program. Large clusters of satellites flying in formation must have some level of onboard autonomy in order to: fly within specified tolerance levels; avoid collisions; address fault detection, isolation, and resolution (FDIR); share knowledge; and plan and schedule activities. Commanding and controlling a large cluster of satellites can be very burdensome for ground operators as well. The article describes efforts to address these issues through the technology development for TechSat 21
Keywords :
aerospace control; aerospace expert systems; artificial satellites; collision avoidance; command and control systems; Space Vehicles Directorate; TechSat 21 program; US Department of Defense; autonomous software development; autonomous spacecraft fleets; collision avoidance; commanding and control system; complex mission objectives; cooperating satellites; fault detection; ground operators; onboard autonomy; satellite cluster command; scheduling; technology development; Computer architecture; Fault detection; Force control; Isolation technology; Laboratories; NASA; Programming; Satellites; Scheduling; Space vehicles;
Journal_Title :
Intelligent Systems and their Applications, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/5254.895850
