Control of Electromagnetic Current at Final Docking Phase of Small Satellites

This paper proposes a relative position and attitude control method by using only magnetic force with multi-dipole for formation-flying spacecrafts. The control method can be widely applied to re-configurable space structures that architect large structure or reconstruct themselves by assembling basic structural units. One remarkable benefit of the method is that it does not require reaction wheels for relative attitude controls and then fuels for unloading. This paper focuses on current control of dipoles which produce strong nonlinear magnetic forces and suggests a way of linearization by using a corresponding linear reference system. A feasibility of this method and controllability of the strong nonlinear system is discussed, and then the series of position and attitude control simulation are shown, and the future works are suggested in the paper.