Techniques and technologies for navigation and control of aerospace micro-platform formations

This projects is part of a national project, co-ordinated by the University of Rome, concerning the study of formations of microplatforms. In this framework, the specific project of the research unit at the University of Naples “Federico II” aims at studying one of the main topics related to formation flying: formation autonomous navigation and control. The research will be focused of navigation and control of formations for aerospace applications. In particular, techniques will be analysed to measure the formation element state vector based on sensor information fusion. In addition, techniques and algorithms will be studied to control the formation elements so that a certain formation shape is maintained. Control techniques will be designed to minimise the control cost. Since the use of micro-platforms is one of the main goal of the project, developed techniques and algorithms will rely on the use of advanced sensor and actuators based on MEMS and CMOS technologies. To this end, in the study the hardware technical characteristics will be carefully considered and modelled. The research activity also foresees the prototype development of an integrated autonomous navigation system composed by a GPS receiver, MEMS gyros and an APS-based star sensor. The prototype will be preliminary tested by means of an hardware-in-the-loop experiment to be defined during the study.