Model -based Autonomous Coordination of Distributed Spacecraft Formations

The deployment of multip le, identical spacecraft to achieve a single coordinated objective offers many attractive features including large virtual sensing apertures, temporally correlated in -situ sampling, and high level mission redundancy. While fundamentally enabled by advance ments in low power electronics and component miniaturization, successful deployment of such systems will ultimately depend on the ability to provide high levels of individual and coordinated autonomy such that the spacecraft formation can be programmed and monitored as a single entity. Recent developments in reactive model -based programming offer a step towards achieving such levels of system autonomy. Model -based programming differs fundamentally from procedural specification of system actions in that co ntrol commands are synthesized at runtime by a continuous process of high level state estimation and reactive planning, using explicit logic models of spacecraft hardware and software components coupled with high level control strategy specifications. Thi s paper will describe current research in model -based programming for autonomous coordination of spacecraft formations