Coordinated rotation control of multiple rigid bodies in SO(3)

In this paper, we consider the problem of rotation coordination of a group of bodies in SO(3), which has significant applications in coordinating spinning spacecraft and diving underwater vehicles. By exploiting passive decomposition, the system is divided into: 1) the shape system representing the group formation shape, and 2) the locked system describing the movement of the whole the group. We then design centralized controller which can be easily achieved by canceling out the coupling between two systems and controlling the shape and locked systems individually.