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An evolutionary robotics approach for the distributed control of satellite formations

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Abstract

We propose and study a decentralized formation flying control architecture based on the evolutionary robotic technique. We develop our control architecture for the MIT SPHERES robotic platform on board the International Space Station and we show how it is able to achieve micrometre and microradians precision at the path planning level. Our controllers are homogeneous across satellites and do not make use of labels (i.e. all satellites can be exchanged at any time). The evolutionary process is able to produce homogeneous controllers able to plan, with high precision, for the acquisition and maintenance of any triangular formation.

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Notes

  1. Though not strictly an “evolutionary algorithm”, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) belongs to the same general class of metaheuristics, or population-based stochastic search procedures.

  2. https://github.com/esa/pagmo/wiki.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Concepts Team, European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

    Dario Izzo

  2. Computational Intelligence Group, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Luís F. Simões

  3. Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands

    Guido C. H. E. de Croon

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  1. Dario Izzo
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  2. Luís F. Simões
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  3. Guido C. H. E. de Croon
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Correspondence to Dario Izzo.

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Izzo, D., Simões, L.F. & de Croon, G.C.H.E. An evolutionary robotics approach for the distributed control of satellite formations. Evol. Intel. 7, 107–118 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12065-014-0111-9

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