Università di Roma “La Sapienza”

Corso di Dottorato in “Energia e Ambiente” - XXXV ciclo

1st year report – September 30th, 2020

Ph.D. candidate: Karthick Dharmarajan

Tutor: Prof. G.B. Palmerini

Preliminary subject: Collision avoidance and reconfiguration strategies for satellite constellations
and formations oriented to environmental observation and monitoring.

During the previous year I attempted to improve my background in the field of formation flying. I read
several books and publications related to the field of Spacecraft Navigation, Formation flying and
satellite collision avoidance. I confirmed my interest in the field of formation flying and I have chosen
the topic of optimal reconfiguration and Path planning of satellites in formation flying as my core topic.

Course(s) followed:

During the month of January 2020 I successfully completed the optional course on Remote Sensing
Applications to the field of Disaster Management, taught by Professor Giovanni Laneve. The course
has been selected, at the advice of my tutor, as quite relevant to my preliminary, possible subject of
thesis: in fact configuration and reconfiguration of the spacecraft belonging to the
constellation/formation will be dictated by the specific targets to be aimed. Thanks to this course I
learnt some advanced remote sensing techniques and a I completed a practical assignment to analyse
environmental disasters using remote sensing applications. Indeed, I got a good knowledge of using
software such as ENVI and SNAP. In addition, I followed some more specific seminars and lectures
given by teachers at the School of Aerospace Engineering about topics related to Space Systems.

Activities completed:

This first year has been largely devoted to improving my knowledge in the disciplines related to the
field of formation flying, like Spacecraft Operations, Astrodynamics, Space Systems. Indeed, I carried
out an in-depth study of classical textbooks as Sidi (“Spacecraft Dynamics and control”),
Tapley(“Statistical orbit determination”) and above all Alfriend and colleagues (“Spacecraft formation
flying dynamics, control and Navigation”) which is especially relevant to my research interests and
reports the relevant state-of-the-art. The knowledge gained from such readings, which have been
selected together with my advisor, is intended to provide a sound basis for my research. I also started
to achieve up-to-date knowledge and skills by orderly studying several journal and conference papers
on formation flying in general and – specifically – on collision avoidance and reconfiguration issues. In
reproducing the analyses and approaches performed by researchers in literature, I also improved my
capabilities with simulation software as MATLAB.

I attended the 5th IAA conference on University Satellite Missions and CubeSat Workshop organized
by the International Academy of Astronautics. Several interesting papers on CubeSat space missions,
launch opportunities, Interplanetary exploration and Formation Flying missions were presented, and
the participation proved to be a valuable experience. As part of the conference I also presented a
paper on optimal collision avoidance strategies for satellites in formation flying, to be obtained under
the assumption of impulsive manoeuvres. Propellant consumption minimization and configuration’s
slots reacquisition are important aspects of the approach proposed in the paper. Purposeful
simulations completed the study, and the code I prepared works also for anti-collision manoeuvres
with satellites/objects not belonging to the formations. The paper presented has been submitted and
then accepted for publication in Advances of Astronautical Sciences.

Recently I submitted an abstract titled ‘’Optimal reconfiguration manoeuvres in Formation flying

Missions’’ for the 2021 IEEE Aerospace Conference, where I included further results from my activities.
The abstract has been pre-accepted and I am currently working on the full draft of the paper to be
submitted by the 16th of October.

In the next academic year, I plan to further expand on my knowledge in formation flying and more
precisely in the areas of satellites reconfiguration and path planning. I believe formation flying is
gaining relevance as space mission concept, and is an open, appealing field of research rich of
applications in future space missions.

Rome – September 30th, 2020 (Karthick Dharmarajan, PhD candidate)

Remarks from the Advisor

Karthick successfully carried out all activities and tasks suggested for the 1st year of the course. The
long period of lock down has been used to complete and to go more in depth with main Space Systems
and Orbital Dynamics literature, by carefully reading classical texts. With respect to original research,
the first-year activities already produced one publication in a Scopus indexed venue, and more
material is coming as an abstract has been accepted for an upcoming IEEE conference. According to
these outcomes, I evaluate as positive the academic behaviour of the student, and I propose his
admission to the 2nd year of our PhD course.

Rome – September 30th, 2020

(prof. Giovanni B. Palmerini)