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Reconfiguration and Control of Non-Equal Mass Three-Craft Coulomb Formation

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Abstract

The paper studied reconfiguration of Coulomb formation from three-craft system to four-craft system. Assumed that three-craft Coulomb system already formed a triangle configuration, then, the fourth Coulomb craft is scheduled to join the existing system so as to form a new static configuration. New possible configurations such as quadrilateral in 2-dimension and tetrahedron in 3-dimension for four-craft Coulomb formation are discussed in the paper. The processing of reconfiguration will not change the original origin and triangle formation. Through the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, the mass, the charge and the position of the fourth Coulomb craft can be calculated for these configurations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electric Engineering and Control Science, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Wang Ting

  2. School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116023, China

    Xia Guangqing & Zhao Nan

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  1. Wang Ting
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  2. Xia Guangqing
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  3. Zhao Nan
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Correspondence to Wang Ting.

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Ting, W., Guangqing, X. & Nan, Z. Reconfiguration and Control of Non-Equal Mass Three-Craft Coulomb Formation. J of Astronaut Sci 63, 47–59 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40295-015-0083-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40295-015-0083-8

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