Abstract: Aiming at the high-precision control of composite formation flying for distributed space imaging systems and high actuator collision risk due to small non-contact gaps of disturbance-free payloads， a precision payload formation control of Leader-Follower configuration for composite formation flying is proposed. First， the service module and payload module models of the Leader and Followers based on disturbance-free payload were established. Subsequently， a predictive model of precision payload formation was derived. The modeling predictive controller considering output constraints and non-contact actuator displacement constraints was designed. A rolling optimization approach was employed to solve for the output increment of the non-contact actuators. Thereby， the high-precision formation control of the payload modules was achieved and non-contact actuators were limited in the stroke to avoid module collision. Finally， the proposed controller was verified and compared with LQR controllers through simulations.The simulation results show that the proposed controller achieves a payload formation precision of 2.25μm for relative displacement and 2.07μrad for relative attitude， representing an improvement of up to 82% over the LQR controller. The proposed precision payload formation control based on model prediction provides a technical reference for the engineering applications of distributed space imaging systems.

Key words: Disturbance-Free Payload, composite formation flying, model predictive control, distributed space imaging system