Robust Information Fusion for Spacecraft Formations
Terence H. McLoughlin, Mark Campbell · AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit · 2006
A communication-enabled formation system estimate fusion algorithm is developed that is shown to be robust to delays in the communication subsystem. Information is propagated asynchronously throughout the formation over possibly time delayed channels. The delays are accounted for via an approximation that is valid for systems with low process noise such as those in deep space. The architecture is robust to communication delays and dropouts and is flexible to allow for the tuning of the network to balance information latency and communication resources at the system level.