Micro-spacecraft swarm navigation and control

在我们先前对自由飞行的微型航天器群的动力学和控制建模工作的基础上，我们目前正在开发一个3x3厘米的多氯联苯卫星，该卫星配有微控制器、微机电系统惯性测量装置和磁力矩器。最近的工作还研究了我们的PCB卫星的闭环姿态控制，包括在一个小的亥姆霍兹笼实验室测试。虽然一个单一的PCB卫星的发展将探索的功能水平，可以嵌入在一个单一的设备，该项目的一个新的挑战将是多个设备的发展，形成一个连贯的群体。这类设备的集群可实现对空间环境的大规模并行感测，例如探测空间天气事件。目的和目标：主要研究问题包括：一群多氯联苯卫星如何确定和控制其相对位置，需要哪些传感器、致动器和卫星间通信链路？通过在每个群体成员中集成基于行为的低级别控制，可以将紧急的自组织行为设计成这样一个群体吗？机器智能是否可以用来融合来自群体的感知数据，从而通过大规模并行分布式感知提供全新的服务和卫星应用？研究方法的新奇：该项目将结合联合收割机建模、模拟和实验室规模的开发来研究这些研究问题，同时还将探索微型航天器群的未来应用。与研究理事会的战略和研究领域保持一致：该项目将追求低TRL，支持空间分布式传感器群的研究。这项工作对工程和数字经济有潜在的影响。任何参与的公司或合作者：该项目将与主管的新兴技术皇家工程学院主席联系，该学院正在研究极端长度尺度的空间技术。

Building on our prior work on modelling the dynamics and control of swarms of free-flying micro-spacecraft we are currently developing a 3x3 cm PCB-satellite with a microcontroller, MEMS inertial measurement unit and magnetorquers. Recent work has also investigated closed-loop attitude control of our PCB-satellite, including laboratory testing in a small Helmholtz cage.While the development of a single PCB-satellite will explore the level of functionality that can be embedded in a single device, a new challenge for this project will be the development of multiple devices to form a coherent swarm. Swarms of such devices could enable massively parallel sensing of the space environment, for example to detect space weather events. Aims and objectives:Key research questions include:How can a swarm of PCB-satellites determine and control their relative position, and what sensors, actuators and inter-satellite communication links are required?Can emergent, self-organising behaviours be engineered into such a swarm through the integration of low-level behaviour-based control in each swarm member?Can machine intelligence be used to fuse sensed data from the swarm to deliver entirely new services and satellite applications with massively parallel distributed sensing?Novelty of the research methodology:The project will combine modelling, simulation and laboratory-scale development to investigate these research questions, while also exploring future applications of micro-spacecraft swarms.Alignment to Research Council's strategies and research areas:The project will pursue low TRL, underpinning research on distributed sensors swarms in space. The work has potential impacts across Engineering and Digital Economy.Any companies or collaborators involved:The project will link to the supervisor's Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, which is investigating space technologies at extremes of the length-scale.