Consensus Protocol of a Satellite Constellation

A notion of reachable asymptotic consensus of a network with multiple nonlinear agents is given and the asymptotic consensus protocol problem of multiple dynamic agents is presented. The formats and the existing conditions of the consensus protocol, the methods on how to calculate the consensus protocol under certain network information flow topology are discussed. The validity of the consensus protocol is tested by a satellite constellation with all its nodes being nonlinear satellites, so an attitude consensus protocol of a satellite constellation is obtained as well. Numerical simulation illustrates that using the proposed consensus protocol, the attitude quaternion of every satellite in the network asymptotically approach to the same stable value even though there exists a switched communication topology, which means the attitudes of satellite constellation can reach global asymptotic consensus