B4.7 Distributed Autonomous Architecture for Propulsion-Free Coordination of PocketQube Swarms in Low Earth Orbit
Symposium: B4. 33rd IAA SYMPOSIUM ON SMALL SATELLITE MISSIONS
Session: 7. Constellations and Distributed Systems
Day: Thursday 8 October 2026
Time: 15:00 GMT+3
Room: Hall 2
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is increasingly populated by large constellations supporting Earth observation, IoT, and communications services, raising challenges related to congestion, collision risk, and scalable formation management. These challenges are especially critical for Pico-class spacecraft such as PocketQubes, where propulsion-based formation keeping is often infeasible due to strict mass, power, and cost constraints.
This paper presents a distributed onboard autonomy architecture for propulsion-free coordination architecture of PocketQube swarms in LEO, enabling constellation-level formation control using differential aerodynamic drag. Each spacecraft independently executes lightweight onboard decision-making agent to adjust its attitude and its effective drag area, regulating orbital energy and achieving autonomous in-plane phasing and along-track spacing without reliance on continuous intervention.
The proposed control framework is formulated using nonlinear orbital dynamics and explicitly accounts for dominant perturbations, including J2 effects and atmospheric drag. The architecture is designed for realistic PocketQube processing and power budgets, leveraging lightweight optimisation and AI-based guidance methods suitable for COTS-class avionics. By embedding autonomy at the spacecraft level, the approach supports scalable constellation operations and robust coordination under intermittent ground contact.
High-fidelity numerical simulations using realistic atmospheric density models and attitude constraints show that the proposed scheme maintains coordinated along-track geometries, limits long-term drift, and improves coverage uniformity and revisit time for distributed sensing and communications missions. These capabilities enable distributed sensing and communications missions, including environmental monitoring and resilient IoT services in regions with limited terrestrial or geostationary coverage.
Overall, the results show that PocketQube swarms can achieve autonomous, propulsion-free coordination, providing a low-cost and sustainable pathway for future distributed space systems operating in congested Low Earth Orbits.