PROBA-3 HIGH PRECISION FORMATION FLYING CONTROL SYSTEM

R. Sánchez-Maestro1, A. Agenjo2, D. Escorial3, L. Tarabini4, A. Cropp5.

1
SENER, C/ Severo Ochoa, 4, Tres Cantos – Madrid, Spain. raul.sanchez@sener.es
2
SENER, C/ Severo Ochoa, 4, Tres Cantos – Madrid, Spain. alfredo.agenjo@sener.es
3
GMV, C/ Isaac Newton, 11, Tres Cantos – Madrid, Spain. descorial@gmv.com
4
SENER, C/ Severo Ochoa, 4, Tres Cantos – Madrid, Spain. lorenzo.tarabini@sener.es
5
ESA-ESTEC, Keplerlaan, 1, Noordwijk, The Netherlands. alexander.cropp@esa.int

ABSTRACT
PROBA-3 is the most challenging of the ESA's
technology demonstration missions and is devoted
to fly for the first time a fully autonomous
Formation Flying (FF) mission. It will require
overcoming several difficulties ranging from the
development of new technologies, to the application
of advanced and robust control techniques and
implementation of a full on-board autonomy for
nominal FF manoeuvres.
The main mission challenge is to keep the S/C
formation, which functions as a distributed
telescope, with very high pointing and position
precision. This will be done near apogee with an
advanced GNC system that uses µm precision
optical metrology (among other classical AOCS
related sensors such as STR) and mN thrusters
complemented with reaction wheels for attitude
control.
This paper shows an overview of the flight
formation mission objectives and associated
requirements. Afterwards, the H∞ design approach
for the fine relative position control during the
formation flying station keeping and manoeuvres is
shown.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. PROBA-· MISSION OVERVIEW
PROBA-3 (PRoject for On-Board Autonomy) is the
most complex and ambitious of the ESA's
technology demonstration missions and it is part of
the overall in Orbit Demonstration missions from
the ESA Technical Directorate. The main objective
of PROBA-3 is to demonstrate precision Formation
Flying techniques and technologies as precursor to
future ESA missions. As follow up of the PROBA-1
and PROBA-2 missions, the extension of the
autonomy concept for Formation Flying will also be
demonstrated.
It will fly several innovating technologies required
for Formation Flying of multiple spacecraft.
Formation Flying technology demonstration is a
milestone for future small and large scale virtual
structure missions where these virtual structures will
allow small spacecraft, flying with a fixed relative
geometry, to form giant structure-less instruments.
The PROBA-3 System consists of two independent,
6 degrees of freedom spacecraft flying in a high
elliptic Earth orbit; the nominal master from the
GNC point of view is the Occulter Spacecraft (OSC)
since it is the spacecraft that performs the fine
actuations with Cold Gas thrusters for the relative
position control hence it is the “active” spacecraft.
The reference for the active spacecraft is the
Coronagraph Spacecraft (CSC), which carries the
relative position metrology system. These spacecraft
will autonomously break and reacquire the
formation at each perigee pass and demonstrate
formation flying near apogee. The combined system
is expected to achieve a relative positioning
accuracy of the order of 1mm over a separation
range of 25m to 250m.
A Coronagraph System for inner corona observation
is the selected payload. To allow the operation of
this payload, the OSC satellite will fly in front of the
Sun to cast a shadow across the CSC, eclipsing the
Sun on a sustained basis.
PROBA-3 will additionally validate autonomous
rendezvous in a high elliptic orbit based on
navigation with optical camera. This technology is
required for a number of exploration missions like
planetary sample returns.
The demonstration mission budget imposes several
constrains on the development, verification and
operation approach. Efficiency will be maximized to
reduce costs under a novel pragmatic approach. The
PROBA-3 project will provide along with the
demonstration mission a set of processes,
procedures, techniques and tools for development of
future Formation Flying missions.
1.2. PROBA-3 PERFORMANCE
REQUIREMENTS REVIEW
The objective of the PROBA-3 mission can be
summarised in the form of performance
requirements. The tables below (see Table 1 and
Table 2) show a summary of the values for the
Relative Displacement Error (RDE), the Absolute
Attitude Error (AAE) and the Absolute Attitude
Measurement Error (AAME). The definitions of the

Page 1 of 11
errors as presented in the tables below are taken integrated in the last term by SENER and
from in [1]. The following requirements for relative commanded from only one brain within the GNC
positioning (i.e., RDE) belong to a set of software. These two GNC modules are the
requirements, the so-called High-Precision Attitude Formation Flying GNC (FF-GNC, in charge of
and Position (HPAP), which have been defined to relative position control in nominal mission and also
include the maximum desirable precision on attitude of attitude in one experiment) and the Spacecraft
and relative position for the PROBA-3 mission. GNC (SC-GNC, in charge of attitude control in
Note that the lateral displacement error (RDE) has nominal mission and low level commanding to
been assumed to be approximately scaled with the actuators in all phases); the modes, states and the
relative Inter-Satellite Distance (ISD) between the schedule in both modules are controlled by the
two spacecraft. Formation Flying Management (FFM). The overall
responsibility for the FF Software, including the
The necessity to achieve even better performance development of FFM and FF-GNC has been
(mainly for some figures related to attitude) is under assumed by GMV (Spain) with SENER as
analysis in order to meet all the performance subcontractor that also takes the responsibility of the
requirements. Note that the attitude error of the Formation Flying Failure Detection Isolation and
CSC, which performs the metrology, will influence Recovery (FF-FDIR) function. The responsibility
the errors in the relative position thus leading to a for SC-GNC has been assumed by NGC Aerospace
coupling between attitude and position. (Canada) following a high level design and
specification by SENER.
Table 1: PROBA-3 Position Performance Requirements The GNC in both spacecraft will be very similar to
PROBA-3 each other where nominally the OSC is the master
Error Positioning Units Remarks
and the CSC the slave. The latter serves as the
Requirements
68%. Error along the origin of the reference coordinate system within
nominal formation which the formation control is performed. It is thus
RDEX 1.5 mm
direction (longitudinal the OSC that will be performing the translations for
error) the position control whereas the CSC will be
0.5 (ISD up to
40m)
drifting freely along the nominal orbit.
RDEY 68%. Lateral errors to the
0.73 (ISD up to
mm nominal formation
RDEZ
160m)
direction  The FF-GNC includes all the functions for
1.2 (ISD up to determination of the formation translation
250m)
(relative position) and the formation attitude
(relative attitude), as well as the calculation of
Table 2: PROBA-3 Pointing Performance Requirements suitable and optimal paths to be applied in the
PROBA-3 control for achieving such position and
S/C Error Pointing Units Remarks attitude, and the computation of the control
Requirements commands. It receives the measurements
68%. Error
acquired from the metrology sensors and from
AAEX 300 arcsec around the line of
sight (LOS) the navigation module in SC-GNC for absolute
AAEY 68%. Across attitude and transmitted if necessary through
2.8 arcsec LOS, value in the ISL (Inter Satellite Link) to the FF-GNC in
CSC AAEZ each axis the companion spacecraft.
68%. Around
AAMEX 30 arcsec
LOS  The SC-GNC includes the classical functions
AAMEY
1.25 arcsec
68%. Across of an Attitude and Orbit Control system
AAMEZ LOS (AOCS), with absolute attitude determination,
68%. Around paths calculation and absolute attitude control,
AAEX 900 arcsec
LOS
and actuators (including thrusters) low level
AAEY 68%. Across commanding. The commands to the thrusters
30 arcsec
AAEZ LOS
OSC are managed at this level in the so-called
68%. Around
AAMEX 300 arcsec
LOS
Actuators Manager, in such a way that the FF-
GNC transmits the commands in form of
AAMEY 68%. Across
AAMEZ
5 arcsec
LOS desired force (and torque in one experiment)
and they are decomposed in individual
commands to each of the thrusters within this
actuator manager. The same holds for the
1.3. GNC GENERAL ARCHITECTURE reaction wheels. It also includes the absolute
It has been decided that the GNC for both PROBA- position and velocity determination. The SC-
3 spacecraft is to be separated into two GNC is commanded by the FFM.
interconnected GNC modules, designed together,
although implemented by different companies, and
This separation is justified by the industrial
organisation of PROBA-3 and mission
characteristics, where the two spacecraft must be
able to be operated in stack configuration and
separately, where the SC-GNC is commanded by
ground without the FF-GNC and FFM in the loop.
The nominal mission includes all modules working
together in the control loop to demonstrate the
Formation Flying capability.
The previous approach allows the on board GNC to
perform a wide set of manoeuvres and experiments,
either in Formation or in Stand Alone configuration
and Safe configurations. As mentioned previously,
the GNC subsystems must perform various
experiments during the flight formation phase,
leading to potentially different strategies to be
developed. Two main distinct manoeuvres can be
distinguished, which are denoted as the rigid and
loose manoeuvres.
 Rigid formation manoeuvres: where the
nominal attitude profile for each spacecraft has
to keep the two payload reference coordinate
frames parallel during the whole manoeuvre, in
such a way that the high-accuracy metrology
system is able to operate throughout these
manoeuvres. The formation will either change
the distance between S/C (resizing: from 150m
to 25m and back and from 150m to 250m and
back) or the formation is rotated (retargeting
up to 30 degrees and back to the original
position) or both at the same time.
 Formation loose manoeuvres: There are no
stringent requirements on attitude and position
to be met during the manoeuvre, only at the
start and end of the manoeuvre. These
manoeuvres will be applied with impulsive
delta-Vs calculated in the Guidance module.
These manoeuvres implying relative position
change will be executed by the OSC spacecraft that
carries the mN thruster system. The relative position
measurements are taken by CSC and transmitted to
the OSC via radiofrequency (with an Inter Satellite
Link – ISL).
2. CONTROL DESIGN
One of the discussions during the design phase has
been the choice of the reference frame for the
problem posing and associated plant model. For
most rendezvous & docking missions a rotating
orbital frame such as the Local Vertical Local
Horizon (LVLH) formulation is more suitable. In
PROBA-3, the formation is to be maintained near-
inertially since it is related to the Sun direction, As a
consequence, the use of an inertial formulation was
thus at first adopted since it would lead to a
simplification of the problem posing by tailoring it
to the mission specifics. However, at present, the
decision has been taken to depart from the inertial
approach and to adopt an LVLH formulation for the
control design as that would lead to added benefits
regarding the robustness analysis in later phases.
Additionally, it would also lead to a more general
design approach applicable to other flight formation
missions. The LVLH design approach is currently in
progress and simulation results are to be expected
soon. In this paper, the former inertial formulation
approach is presented and afterwards the steps and
implications towards the LVLH frame are briefly
described.
The FF-GNC control and the SC-GNC control
together have the demanding task of maintaining a
flight formation with a very high precision in
relative position and attitude described in section
1.2.
The Guidance module will provide a position and
attitude profile, which is compared to the
Navigation results. The Control will thus compute
the necessary actions to follow the Guidance profile.
In order to improve the response and performance
during the manoeuvres, the controller consists of
both a feed-forward term and feed-back term. The
feed-forward terms are derived directly from the
Guidance profiles and consist of the nominal forces
and torques that are necessary to execute the
manoeuvre. The feed-back term then compensates
for any deviations during from the nominal path.
For the FF-GNC control, the most demanding
manoeuvres are the rigid ones, where the high
accuracy metrology has to be operating, within its
narrow field of view. Throughout these rigid
manoeuvres, only one spacecraft will be under
active closed-loop position control while both
spacecraft will be actively controlled to keep the
attitude profiles as provided by the guidance
modules for each respective spacecraft, either for
the manoeuvres that the attitude has to be kept
inertial, Sun pointing or when a retargeting
manoeuvre is commanded.
Modern robust control techniques, such as H∞ and
µ-analysis, are used to design and analyse the FF-
GNC controller. For the plant modelling, the
relative orbital dynamics can be simplified by
expressing the control problem with respect to the
nominal reference position of the OSC and
considering the gravity gradient as a deterministic
perturbation that is to be compensated through an
additional feed-forward term. A very important non-
linear element is the presence of thrusters and its
effects are carefully taken into account by designing
an adequate modulation scheme and by making sure
that the H∞ design does not enter the frequency
range of the modulation. Naturally, the attitude and
position control are not completely independent
from each other for the formation control scheme. A
GNC architectural separation of attitude and
position exists hence the attitude dynamics is taken
into account in the FF-GNC design by both
imposing performance requirements on the SC-
GNC and to add the necessary robustness properties
to the position controller synthesis and analysis.
The attitude followed by the two spacecraft is
transferred at a certain frequency to the CSC
spacecraft to check the progress of the manoeuvre
and to allow to the on-board Formation Flying-
FDIR subsystem to decide what to do in case the
relative attitude and/or position exceeds the allowed
thresholds.
The functions to be performed by the control
module within the FF-GNC during the loose
formation manoeuvres is limited to take the
reference delta-V provided by the Guidance module
to be decomposed in forces that will be commanded
as a function of time.
In addition to this Formation Flying Control, each
spacecraft has a set of standalone Attitude Control
Modes. These modes are part of the SC-GNC, in
which each satellite is commanded regardless the
fact that it is part of a Formation or not. The
standalone Attitude Control Modes involve
autonomous Attitude Determination, path profiles
calculation and control functionalities to provide the
capabilities to get and maintain Sun pointing with a
set of simple and robust units and algorithms, to get
and maintain high accuracy inertial pointing, high
accuracy Sun pointing (that is quasi-inertial
pointing), to get and maintain target pointing (that is
used to face both spacecraft towards each other to
acquire optical metrology) and to perform correction
manoeuvres.
These standalone modes are also active during the
formation phases, to allow a significant decoupling
between Attitude Control and Translational Control.
Note that this is decoupling in terms of calculation
of commands to thrusters and wheels, but not in the
control problem posing, since the control at FF-
GNC level has to take into account the unavoidable
coupling with the attitude, including the attitude of
the other spacecraft.
There will be a challenging experimental control
mode that will consist of a 6 degrees of freedom
(6DoF) controller based only on thrusters as
actuators (i.e., no reaction wheels are included in the
control loop in the active spacecraft) to be
performed by the OSC, while the other remains in
inertial pointing (formation station keeping will be
demonstrated in orbit within this experiment, but
also retargeting, resizing and both together). The
objective is to achieve the same precision in
pointing and position performances as in the
nominal modes, where the attitude is controlled with
wheels and the relative position with mN level
thrusters. In this experiment, the attitude control is
fully integrated in the translational control within
the FF-GNC for the OSC spacecraft. Consequently,
a simultaneous 6DoF design approach will be
adopted.
2.1. COUPLING BETWEEN POSITION
AND ATTITUDE
At system level, the decision has been made to
separate the position and attitude control, which are
respectively executed by the FF-GNC and SC-GNC.
In fact, they are both designed by different parties
hence a combined and strict 6DoF approach is
discarded for nominal modes. Nevertheless, the
reality is that there is an inevitable coupling between
the attitude and position dynamics hence a strict
separation and independent design is not possible
and some iteration between both parties will be
mandatory during the design and analysis process. In
order to cope with the coupling and to minimise its
effect, the following two measures are introduced.
First, both attitude and position control are subject to
requirements and restrictions such that they interact
as little as possible with each other. Second, the
attitude control is included in the position control
design as a perturbation source within the H∞ robust
design framework.
The most important requirement is to have different
controller bandwidths for the position and attitude
control in order to avoid any dynamical interaction
leading to any undesired amplification of position or
attitude dynamics. The attitude control is assumed to
be significantly faster than the position control.
Consequently, any attitude related effects will
behave as a high frequency disturbance.
Ideally, when firing the thrusters, they would
generate pure forces. But the presence of thruster
errors and the fact that the resultant net force vector
will not go exactly through the S/C mass centre,
there will be residual perturbation torques that will
affect the attitude. Consequently, the design of the
position control should take this into account by
avoiding large control forces and too much control
activity. This way, the attitude dynamics will be
perturbed less allowing the attitude controller to
compensate for these impulsive thruster based
torque perturbations.
Additionally, the presence of a low frequency
gravity gradient acceleration will lead to control
forces in a particular direction, which in turn may
lead to systematic torque perturbations in the low
frequency region. Once this effect is characterised
and quantified, a specific disturbance rejection
requirement can thus be put on the attitude control
design.
The direction of the commanded forces depends on
the attitude. Therefore, any attitude deviation will
lead to small deviations in the desired force
direction. Considering the very stringent pointing
requirements, these force errors are expected to be
small and may perhaps be negligible for the
commanded forces. In any case, this effect is to be
studied and assessed.
2.2. PLANT MODELLING
The OSC is subjected to a forced motion whereas
the CSC is free floating in a highly elliptic orbit. The
relative orbital dynamics can be linearised around
the CSC and could in principle serve as the plant
model of the OSC for the control synthesis.
However, it is easier and more convenient to centre
the plant dynamics at the origin of the OSC. After
all, in the nominal station keeping case, the OSC
needs to be controlled at a fixed relative position
with respect to CSC. The relative orbital dynamics
will try to “push” the OSC away from its desired
position. Since the required position accuracy is at
mm level, these small variations will hardly affect
the magnitude and direction of the gravity gradient
acceleration around the nominal position. Therefore,
the relative orbital dynamics can be treated as a
deterministic acceleration field that is superposed on
the OSC. As a result, the plant model of the OSC
can thus be reduced to a double integrator where the
gravity gradient acceleration is estimated on-line and
compensated through a feed-forward term.
2.3. THRUSTER ACTUATION SCHEME
Thrusters are a highly non-linear element whose
dynamical effects must be taken into account during
the design. Due to its non-linear properties, it is not
trivial to incorporate this actuator into a classical
linear design and analysis process. A common
procedure is to apply a pulse width modulation
(PWM) scheme so that the linear control commands
are converted into a series of pulses.
The presence of the gravity gradient acceleration
will lead to control forces in a specific direction. The
thrusters will therefore generate discrete pulses in
one direction to compensate a continuous force in
the opposite direction. This leads to a “hopping” of
the position error signal as shown in Fig.1.
The controller runs at the FF-GNC frequency of 1Hz
whereas the thruster PWM will run at a lower
frequency, which is currently set to 0.05 Hz and is
partly driven by the maximum number of allowable
valve operations during its life time. Since both
frequencies do not coincide, the dynamics that
results from the thruster pulse pattern will to some
extent be “visible” by the controller in the form of a
“hopping arc” signal.
The “arcs” in the position error signal (see Fig.1)
can be considered a noise, which has to be
eliminated. The main problem lies with the time
derivative, which will have very large values that
could significantly affect the performance of a linear
controller. One could apply low pass filters to filter
out the undesired components but that could impose
severe restrictions on the resulting allowable
controller bandwidth. Another option could be to
explicitly generate a guidance profile to follow an
estimated “arc-profile” and compute the appropriate
error signal but this would introduce additional
complexity and this is best avoided if possible. The
approach that is currently proposed is to sample the
error signal at the points of the thruster actuation. In
other words, the error signal is sampled at the same
frequency as that of the PWM. A qualitative result is
shown in Fig.2. Here, the blue signal represents the
original “hopping” error signal. The red circles
indicate the points where the thrusters are actuated
and here the instantaneous error signal is sampled.
As a result, the green line is the signal that is fed to
the controller and it can be observed that the “arcs”
are no longer present. Both error signal and its time
derivative are now much smoother leading to cleaner
control commands. Naturally, this approach has the
effect that the error signal is sampled at the PWM
frequency, which is indicated in the figure by the
vertical dashed lines. But since the thruster PWM is
any way in the control loop, the bandwidth and
“effective” sample time is already driven by the
PWM. In any case, it must be highlighted that the
Navigation Module does still make use of all
available measurement hence the Navigation does
take into account all the data along the arcs. It is
only the Control that in a selective manner only
chooses to take data at specific points. This concept
has been implemented in a simplified yet dedicated
simulation environment for testing purposes and it
has shown to work very well.
The describing Function technique can be employed
to assess its impact on the stability margins. In any
case, in order to ensure a linear control behaviour
using thrusters, the PWM frequency must be higher
than that of the control bandwidth.
gravity gradient acceleration
x
Time
Thruster pulses
Figure 1: Effect of thruster pulses within the gravity gradient
acceleration field

x by a double integrator.
time
Figure 2: Error signal processing scheme through sampling at the
PWM frequency
2.4.
H∞ SYNTHESIS AND PRELIMINARY
RESULTS
The final objective is to design a robust controller
based on H∞ synthesis and µ-analysis. The design
process has started where the control problem is
analysed and adapted to the H∞ framework. As a
first approach, a generalised plant model is obtained
with a set of suitable weighting functions but, at
least for now, without modelling the uncertainties
for robustness properties. The aim is to synthesize a
preliminary H∞ controller in order to obtain both
qualitative and quantitative insight into the control
problem and achievable performance.
A block diagram of the feedback system and
weighting functions is shown in Fig.3.
z1
WS
d
Wd
WKS
z2
r
K G WT
z3
n
Wn
Figure 3: Feedback block diagram with the weighting functions
for the H∞ synthesis
Here the objective is to synthesize a controller K
such that the H∞ norm from the inputs d, r and n to
the outputs z1, z2 and z3 is minimised and close to 1
through scaling. The weighting functions Wi are to
be tuned and scaled adequately in order to obtain the
desired properties of the closed loop system.
A description of the function blocks and variables is
given next:
d This input represents the disturbance force.
In this scheme it mainly contains the low
frequency gravity gradient acceleration that
needs to be suppressed.
r This is the tracking reference command.
n This input represents the noise of the
Navigation.
K Controller to be synthesised.
G Plant model of the S/C and is represented
WT This weighting function bounds the
complementary sensitivity function T and
is here primarily used to set an upper limit
of the bandwidth, which is critical in the
presence of the thruster PWM.
Additionally, it can be used to include
robustness properties but that aspect is
excluded in the current preliminary design.
WS This weighting function bounds the
sensitivity function S and it is here
primarily used to impose a desired
suppression factor to the low frequency
external disturbance forces.
WKS This weighting function bounds the
maximum values of the control commands.
When taking the transfer function from r to
z2, the maximum control commands occur
at frequencies near the controller
bandwidth, which are naturally much
higher than the operating frequency of the
tracking command r, which is near-inertial
pointing. Nevertheless, this weighting
function can be used to add additional poles
and zeros near and after the cross-over
frequency for loop shaping and additional
filtering.
Wd This weighting function represents the
magnitude scaling and frequency range of
the external disturbance forces. Here, the
main disturbance of interest is the gravity
gradient acceleration.
Wn This weighting function represents the
magnitude scaling and frequency range of
the Navigation errors.
Since there are 3 inputs and 3 outputs, there are a
total of 9 combinations of individual transfer
functions. However, it is not possible to tailor the
weighting functions and scale them independently
for each individual combination. Instead, the
emphasis will be put on the input/output transfer
functions from r to all 3 outputs and from d to z1.
Nevertheless, the scaling and tuning is done such
that none of the other combinations introduce any
“conflicts” in the sense that the nominal ideal H∞
norm of 1 cannot be met and afterwards, a check is
to be performed to analyse the norm and to assess
whether they drive the synthesis result. When tuning
the weighting functions, the following criteria have
been followed:
- Bandwidth upper limit: At present, a thruster PWM
period of 20 seconds has been chosen. From this
value, the WT function is tuned according so that the
bandwidth is at least 20 times lower than the PWM
frequency.
- Disturbance force suppression: The presence of generalised plant P is obtained for the H∞
low frequency external forces, such as the gravity framework.
gradient and to some extent also the differential
solar radiation force, may require some integral 50
W-1
S
20
W-1
T

action in order to reject these perturbations. As 10

mentioned previously, the gravity gradient is to be

Magnitude (dB)

Magnitude (dB)
0 0

-10

compensated by a feed-forward term as it is -50 -20

deterministic and can be computed on-line. -30

However, this compensation is not assumed to be -100

10
-5 0
10
-40
-2
10 10
0
10
2

perfect so some residual errors are expected hence

Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)

the need for additional feedback compensation. To 40

W-1
KS
-60
Wd

be conservative, during this preliminary design 20

-65

process, it is assumed that the feedback control

Magnitude (dB)

Magnitude (dB)
-70

0 -75

needs to compensate the disturbance fully without -80

any feed-forward help. The frequency range of the

-20
-85

gravity gradient is to a large extent related to the -40

-2
10 10
0 2
10
-90
10
-5
10
-4 -3
10
-2
10

orbital period. The gravity gradient direction will in

Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)

a way “circle” around the S/C as it moves along the -60

Wn

orbit. But the S/C will also rotate during a -80

retargeting manoeuvre. Considering these issues, a

Magnitude (dB)
conservative value of 6·10-4 rad/sec is chosen as a
-100

maximum value. The Wd weight function is

-120

modelled as 1st order low-pass filter with this value -140

10
-3
10
-2
10
-1 0
10
1
10

as the cut-off frequency. The disturbance amplitude

Frequency (rad/sec)

suppression is chosen such that its influence on the Figure 4: Bode plots of the weighting functions
error signal is reduce to sub-mm level at this
maximum frequency within the WS weight function.
- Noise level: Currently, no quantitative information P
is available for the Navigation errors with high n
Wn z1
WS
accuracy metrologies. Consequently, some r
assumptions are to be made. The magnitude is d z2
WKS
assumed to be compatible with the mm-level
position accuracy. Since the Navigation uses explicit Wd WT
z3

attitude information, it is here assumed for

simplicity that the noise frequency range may go
down to the attitude controller bandwidth, which is
at this point not known. A conservative value of
0.126 rad/sec is taken as it is lower than a predicted
value of attitude control bandwidth given by the
responsible design party in question.
In any case, the results show that the noise input
does not drive the synthesis as the related
input/output norms are small. Consequently,
variations in the noise value will hardly alter the
synthesis results.
- Loop shaping: As mentioned above, the weighting
function WKS can be used for adding poles and zeros
for loop shaping. Although, at this point, it has not
been exploited to the fullest, it has been identified
during the design iterations that it is a useful tool for
adding filters and to adjust stability margins if
necessary.
A bode plot of all the weight functions is shown in
Fig.4.
The synthesis is done in MATLAB using the Robust
Control toolbox. The block diagram in Fig.3 is
reorganised as shown in Fig.5 and the augmented
u v
G
K
Figure 5: Block diagram of the generalized plant for controller
synthesis
A minimum realisation (i.e. minimum number of
states) of the state space model of the generalised
plant P is obtained symbolically where the
individual state-space matrices of the S/C plant G
and weighting functions Wi are explicit parameters
in equations (1) and (2). These equations allow easy
and fast design iterations and testing as the
weighting functions can be retuned and altered at
will as the resulting minimum realisation state-space
model of the generalised plant is obtained
immediately for each case. A Multiple Input
Multiple Output (MIMO) system consisting of all
three axes is taken as baseline but it should be noted
that it will actually behave as three Single Input
Single Output (SISO) systems due to a lack of
modelled cross couplings. Nevertheless, the setup of
a MIMO design approach is already available so that matrices indicate the function to which it belongs as
a future incorporation of specific MIMO issues can follows:
be done with little effort.
G S/C Plant
 Ad
 B C
0 0 0 0 0 

0
0
Bd 0 0 
 r T WT
 G d AG 0 0 0 0   BG Dd 0 BG  
B D C BT C G AT 0 0 0  0 BT DG Dd 0 BT DG  d  S WS
x   T G d x   
 BS DG C d BS CG 0 AS 0 0   BS  B S DG Dd 0  BS DG  n 
  KS WKS
 0  0 0  u 

0 0 0 0 An
 
0 Bn
 d Wd
 0 0 0 0 0 AKS   0 0 0 B KS 
(1) n Wn

 z1   DS DG C d
  
DS C G 0 CS 0 0   DS D S DG D d 0  DS DG  r 
 
The synthesis results are shown in Fig.6. Here, the
C KS  0 D KS  d 
 z2   0
 z   D D C
0 0 0 0
x
0 0
maximum value of the singular value decomposition
DT C G CT 0 0 0  0 DT DG Dd 0 DT DG  n 
 3
v   D C
   G d
T G d

 CG 0 0  Cn 0 
 
 I  DG Dd  Dn
 
 DG  u  (SVD) of the input/output channels from r to zi and d
(2) to z1 are shown together with the corresponding
weighting functions. (Each of the input/output
The equations (1) and (2) represent a minimum channels is a 3x3 MIMO transfer function). The
realisation of the state-space model of the resulting H∞ norm of the complete transfer function
generalised plant P. It is expressed as the individual from all inputs to all outputs is equal to γ= 0.89.
state-space matrices A, B, C and D of the plant G
and weighting functions. The sub-indices of the

r --> z1 - S vs. W-1

S
r --> z3 - T vs. W-1
T
50 100

50
0
0

-50
Magnitude (dB)

Magnitude (dB)

-50

-100

-100
-150

-200
-150 S (bilin) T (bilin)
S (bilin back-transformed) -250 T (bilin back-transformed)
W-1 W-1
T
S
-200 -300
-6 -4 -2 0 2 -6 -4 -2 0 2
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)

r --> z2 - KS vs. W-1

KS
d --> z1 - SGWd vs. W-1
S
50 100

50

0 0

-50
Magnitude (dB)

Magnitude (dB)

-50 -100

-150

-100 -200

-250
SGWd (bilin)
-150 KS (bilin) -300
SGWd (bilin back-transformed)
KS (bilin back-transformed)
-350
W-1 W-1
S
KS
-200 -400
-6 -4 -2 0 2 -6 -4 -2 0 2
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)

Figure 6: H∞ synthesis results (without any order reduction)

These results show that the main drivers that affect order in order to still provide enough suppression at
the controller synthesis are the combination of the the desired frequency while not conflicting with WT
upper bandwidth restriction in WT and the in terms of the allowable bandwidth region.
suppression factor in WS. In fact, WS had to be of 2nd
The resulting controller needs to be subjected to an
order reduction, which consists of three steps. First,
a model reduction is applied based on the Hankel
eigenvalues, which can be done directly with the
appropriate MATLAB tools. Second, the values of
the poles are analysed and checked whether there are
any near zero indicating integral action. Since the
synthesis routine cannot obtain a pure integrator
with poles at zero, it has to be imposed by hand. And
thirdly, a check is made to see whether there are any
high frequency poles and zeros that can be
eliminated altogether without affecting the controller
behaviour. The results are shown in Fig.7 after
applying the order reduction.
The order reduction has shown that there were two
poles near zeros indicating that the controller
r --> z1 - S vs. W-1
S
100
requires a double integrator term to obtain the
necessary suppression factor leading to a PII2D
controller structure. It becomes clear that despite the
low frequency of the gravity gradient term and
relatively low value, it is an important design driver
as the required position accuracy is very high. But it
has to be stressed that the imposed suppression
factor is very conservative as the feed-forward term
was not taken into account. In reality, the necessary
suppression factor will be less as it only needs to
compensate the residual errors of the feed-forward
compensation. In that case, it is possible to reduce
the controller further and eliminate the double
integral term and keeping only the PID term.
r --> z3 - T vs. W-1
T
50

50
0

-50
-50
Magnitude (dB)

Magnitude (dB)

-100 -100

-150
-150

-200

-200
-250 S, after order reduction T, after order reduction
W-1
S
W-1
T
-300 -250
-6 -4 -2 0 2 -6 -4 -2 0 2
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)

r --> z2 - KS vs. W-1

KS
d --> z1 - SGWd vs. W-1
S
50 100

50

0 0

-50
Magnitude (dB)

Magnitude (dB)

-50 -100

-150

-100 -200

-250

-150 -300
KS, after order reduction SGWd, raw full order
-350
W-1
KS
SGWp, BST model reduction
-200 -400
-6 -4 -2 0 2 -6 -4 -2 0 2
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)

Figure 7: H∞ synthesis results (after order reduction)

To validate the results in a time-domain simulation,
a simple Simulink model has been created consisting
of the discretised controller, the S/C plant, a
representative PWM scheme applied to the control
command to simulate the discontinuous thruster
effects and a sinusoidal external force perturbation
representing the gravity gradient matching the
maximum expected magnitude. Additionally,
Gaussian noise values have been implemented as
well to represent sensor and actuator noise. The
simulation results for a 12 hour period are shown in
5.8. Here, it can be seen that the position error is
below 1mm hence the suppression factor is indeed
as effective as intended by the design process. (Note
that there is deliberately no feed-forward term,
which would in reality further improve the
suppression). A zoom of the results shows the arcs
and “hopping” nature of the error signal, which is
caused by the combination of thrusters and external A more in-depth analysis is to be performed to
acceleration field. In Fig.9, both the real position assess what the optimal thruster PWM period is. At
error and the error signal as computed by the control the moment, 20 seconds has been chosen for station
are shown together. Here, it can be observed that the keeping but since the thruster modulation has a
proposed scheme of taking samples only at the critical impact on the performance, it needs to be
points of the thruster actuations works as intended as analysed thoroughly, mainly for retargeting
it eliminates the “arc” signal. manoeuvres where a value of up to 5 seconds could
be selected.
1
Simulation results: Position error vs time
The properties of the actuators and sensors need to
0.5
be consolidated (out of scope of Phase B) whenever
possible in order to be able to tune the controller
0
position error [mm]

-0.5

-1 synthesis accordingly.
-1.5 MIMO couplings need to be analysed in-depth and
-2
addressed during the design. Especially the coupling
between position and attitude. As a starting point,
-2.5

-3

the coupling should at least be modelled in the

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
time [sec] 4
x 10

simulation tool. In a later stage, the block diagrams

in Fig.3 and Fig.5 may need to be updated to
Simulation results (ZOOM)

0.44

0.42 included possible cross-coupling effects between

0.4
attitude and position.
position error [mm]

0.38

0.36

0.34
The issue of robustness properties will be addressed
0.32 once the current system design is more mature
0.28
0.3
where both hardware (e.g. actuators and sensors) and
0.26
3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19
software (e.g. Navigation, Attitude control
time [sec]
x 10
4
algorithms) start to get consolidated. Adequate
Figure 8: Time domain simulation test (top: 12 hour period, modelling of the plant and its uncertainties will
bottom: Zoom )
become critical and µ-analysis will be used to
Real position error vs Control error signal analyse the robustness.
0.22 Real position error
Control error signal

0.2
2.6. LVLH FORMULATION
0.18
As mentioned previously, the decision has been
0.16
taken to adopt an LVLH formulation for the control
position error [mm]

0.14
design. This design approach has already started and
0.12 a promising controller candidate design is already
0.1 available. Time-domain simulations for validation
0.08 are pending and are to be expected soon. The main
0.06
differences and implications by adopting this new
2.36 2.365 2.37 2.375 2.38 2.385 2.39 2.395 2.4
approach will be described next.
time [sec] 4
x 10

Figure 9: Real position error vs. error signal as computed by

The main difference can be found in the plant model
the Control where the coordinate axes are rotating with the orbit
and where the relative orbital dynamics are
2.5. FUTURE WORK explicitly included in the plant model instead of
being modelled as an external perturbation. The
A preliminary controller has been designed and
plant is thus no longer reduced to a simple double
tested in a simple simulation setup. The next steps
integrator. The corresponding set of linearised
can be summarized as follows:
equations governing the relative motion in an elliptic
orbit can be found in [3]. These equations are time
The controller needs to be tested in a more realistic
varying hence a reference point within the orbit has
environment by implementing the controller into the
to be selected in order to use an LTI system for the
official PROBA-3 FES (Functional Engineering
controller synthesis. This plant model has a
Simulator). Prior to the use of FES, the in-house
decoupled in-plane and out-of-plane motion. The in-
developed simulation tool SENERic has to be used
plane motion consists of a well defined MIMO
for preliminary versions and will be used more
system of two axes whereas the out-of-plane motion
extensively as the high-fidelity non-linear simulation
can be treated as a SISO system. The further the
tool during the design process. At this point, it has
reference point lies from the apogee, the stronger the
already been prepared and setup to simulate the
MIMO couplings. The flight formation is performed
presented design in the PROBA-3 formation flying
around the apogee hence a worst case reference
environment. Testing of the presented controller in
point outside of the “operational range” is chosen to
SENERic is scheduled to commence soon.
obtain the necessary LTI system.
 little effort due to the generic symbolic formulation
The previous inertial design approach was geared of the augmented plant equations.
towards obtaining a pure diagonal controller but the
H∞ synthesis setup is already prepared for a MIMO
system. Consequently, the step from inertial to 4. REFERENCES
LVLH to obtain the augmented plant for the
synthesis was trivial as only the plant model G in [1] ESA Error Budgets for Formation Flying
Fig. 5 had to be replaced by introducing the new Missions, NPD/5022/TD/TR/001 v1.r1.m0, Issue
state-space matrices. 1.1, 03 March 2008.
[2] J. Peyrard, C. De Negueruela, T. V. Peters, C.
Due to the inclusion of the orbital dynamics within Carrascosa, A. Agenjo, and R. Sánchez. “The
the plant model and having a rotating reference GNC System of PROBA-3”. Proceedings of 4th
frame, the choice of the weighting functions WS and International Conference on Spacecraft Formation
Wd are to be adjusted accordingly. Flying Mission and Technologies, held on St-
Hubert, Québec (Canada).
In the inertial approach, a diagonal controller was [3] New State Transition Matrix for Relative Motion
obtained and the model reduction scheme was aimed on an Arbitrary Elliptical Orbit. K. Yamanaka, F.
at obtaining a specifically tailored PID-like structure Ankersen. Journal of Guidance, Control And
and implementation. With the LVLH approach, a Dynamics Vol.25, No.1, Jan-Feb 2002
MIMO controller for the in-plane motion will be
obtained, albeit with a dominant diagonal structure.
Consequently, a controller using a state-space
formulation will then be implemented. However, the
proposed thruster actuation scheme where an
additional sampling is performed is no longer
applicable as there is no longer a separate D-channel
to perform a tailored time derivative. Instead, the
time derivative is indirectly performed inside the
state-space function. Consequently, some additional
low pass filtering inside the controller is desired to
smooth the error signal that contains the thruster
induced arc signal. (Note that the controller
frequency and PWM frequency have different values
leading to this effect). The use of the weighting
function WKS becomes very useful in introducing the
necessary poles to add the desired low-pass filters.

3. CONCLUSION
A preliminary controller has been designed within
the H∞ framework based on an inertial formulation
for the problem posing. Although the design is at a
preliminary stage the results are very promising.
First, the design setup within the H∞ framework has
been developed and implemented in MATLAB
using the Robust Control Toolbox. Second, a
dedicated thruster PWM and error signal processing
has been proposed and implemented successfully.
And thirdly, a preliminary controller design has
been obtained yielding very useful insight into the
achievable performances, feasibility and tuning of
the weighting functions.

The presented design is currently being updated by

posing the control problem based on an LVLH
formulation. This new design approach is in full
progress and preliminary results look promising.
The main synthesis tools for the H∞ have been
developed hence updating them to incorporate the
LVLH dynamics has been done successfully with