Orbital control of satellite systems using nonholonomic control theory

This study deals with orbital control of a rigid dumbbell-type satellite system. While most of the previous works for orbital transfer aim at changing just one parameter of the orbital element or the orbital energy, in this study the system is transferred by using its inner force into a prescribed orbit defined as a set of orbital elements: semilatus rectum, eccentricity, and argument of pericenter. By applying nonlinear control theories, it is shown that the satellite system is controllable except its pericenter and its apocenter in the elliptic orbit. Then, this paper transforms the nonlinear governing equations into a canonical system, called 'a chained system', and demonstrates that a specified orbit is accomplished by appropriately shaped time histories of control inputs.