Formation Control for Multiple Spacecraft with Disturbances and Sensor Failures

Formation control of multiple spacecraft has attracted extensive research attention. However, achieving reliable performance under sensor failures remains a significant challenge. This paper develops an integrated framework that jointly designs distributed observers and local controllers to ensure robust formation control in the presence of external disturbances and sensor malfunctions. Treating the spacecraft formation as a single interconnected system, each spacecraft constructs a distributed observer that estimates the overall system state by incorporating both its own measurements and the predicted control information shared among the spacecraft. Based on the observer estimates, a local control law is synthesized to maintain the desired formation. Rigorous theoretical analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed integrated approach effectively guarantees formation stability and resilience against sensor failures and disturbances.