Power Consumption Improvement in Position and Attitude Control of Spacecraft Using Electromagnetic Force Assist

Electromagnetic force assist is proposed as a method to reduce power consumption in formation flight maneuvers between spacecraft that use auxiliary coils to generate electromagnetic forces in proximity operations. This paper estimates the potential improvement in power consumption (as indirect metric of potential propellant savings) in spacecraft maneuvers using RINGS (Resonant Inductive Near-field Generation Systems), a prototype system developed to investigate electromagnetic formation flight and wireless power transfer between spacecraft. An assessment of power consumption reduction is based on comparing the control effort required in selected 3-DOF maneuvers. The control effort performance of a linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller for thruster-only maneuvers is used as baseline and is compared to the control effort when two other controllers (based on sliding mode control and feedforward control) provide electromagnetic force assist in addition to the baseline thrusters.