Review on the Development of Satellite Formation and Collision Avoidance Technology

Abstract Formation satellites have a very broad application prospect in many aspects due to the characteristics of unlimited baselines, multi-satellites cooperative working, flexible control and strong survivability, such as distributed radar, electronic reconnaissance, three-dimensional imaging, regional navigation and positioning. In the aspect of avoiding space debris collision, the maneuvering avoidance for a single satellite is often adopted, but there are few studies on the coordinated avoidance of formation satellites. This paper introduces the concept and research status of formation satellites, and lists the common formation satellites in the world, then introduces collision warning technologies and collision geometry relation determination of formation satellites, including BOX regional warning method and collision probability warning method. In addition, the strategies of satellite evasive maneuvering are analysed, and various maneuver strategies on different purposes are introduced. Finally, analysing and comparing the research status on debris collision avoidance of formation satellites, a method to keep the working efficiency of formation satellites while maneuvering is put forward.