Global magnetic attitude control of spacecraft in the presence of gravity gradient

Published versio

Spacecraft Attitude Stabilization with Piecewise-constant Magnetic Dipole Moment

In actual implementations of magnetic control laws for spacecraft attitude stabilization, the time in which Earth magnetic field is measured must be separated from the time in which magnetic dipole moment is generated. The latter separation translates into the constraint of being able to genere only piecewise-constant magnetic dipole moment. In this work we present attitude stabilization laws using only magnetic actuators that take into account of the latter aspect. Both a state feedback and an output feedback are presented, and it is shown that the proposed design allows for a systematic selection of the sampling period.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.275

Computationally light attitude controls for resource limited nano-spacecraft

Nano-spacecraft have emerged as practical alternatives to large conventional spacecraft for specific missions (e.g. as technology demonstrators) due to their low cost and short time to launch. However these spacecraft have a number of limitations compared to larger spacecraft: a tendency to tumble post-launch; lower computational power in relation to larger satellites and limited propulsion systems due to small payload capacity. As a result new methodologies for attitude control are required to meet the challenges associated with nano-spacecraft. This paper presents two novel attitude control methods to tackle two phases of a mission using zero-propellant (i) the detumbling post-launch and (ii) the repointing of nano-spacecraft. The first method consists of a time-delayed feedback control law which is applied to a magnetically actuated spacecraft and used for autonomous detumbling. The second uses geometric mechanics to construct zero propellant reference manoeuvres which are then tracked using quaternion feedback control. The problem of detumbling a magnetically actuated spacecraft in the first phase of a mission is conventionally tackled using BDOT control. This involves applying controls which are proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic field. However, real systems contain sensor noise which can lead to discontinuities in the signal and problems with computing the numerical derivative. This means that a noise filter must be used and this increases the computational overhead of the system. It is shown that a timedelayed feedback control law is advantageous as the use of a delayed signal rather than a derivative negates the need for such a filter, thus reducing computational overhead. The second phase of the mission is the repointing of the spacecraft to a desired target. Exploiting the analytic solutions of the angular velocities of a symmetric spacecraft and further using Lax pair integration it is possible to derive exact equations of the natural motions including the time evolution of the quaternions. It is shown that parametric optimisation of these solutions can be used to generate low torque reference motions that match prescribed boundary conditions on the initial and final configurations. Through numerical simulation it is shown that these references can be tracked using nanospacecraft reaction wheels while eigenaxis rotations, used for comparison, are more torque intensive. As the method requires parameter optimisation as opposed to optimisation methods that require numerical integration, the computational effort is reduced

NPSAT1 Magnetic Attitude Control System

This paper describes the design and performance verification of a magnetically controlled smallsat being built by students and staff at the Naval Postgraduate School. The spacecraft (NPSAT1) will carry a number of experiments, including two sponsored by the Naval Research Lab and a commercial, off-the-shelf digital camera. Since NPSAT1 will be a secondary payload, it must be designed for a large mission box at minimum cost. Attitude control pointing requirements are less than 10° and an active magnetic control system is planned. NPSAT1 is manifested on the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) MLV-05, Delta IV mission, due to launch in January 2006. Many spacecraft have employed magnetic sensing and actuation for attitude control. However, in most instances, the systems are designed with long gravity gradient booms for pitch and roll stabilization. The systems usually employ an extended Kalman filter when active damping is required. The NPSAT1 design employs a magnetic control system based on favorable moments of inertia realized by optimum equipment placement and ballast. The control system uses a standard quaternion control law for attitude control with a linear reduced order estimator for rate information. Attitude capture from initial orbit injection rates and steady state attitude errors less than 2° are demonstrated by simulation. The simulation is based on an 8th order magnetic field model and includes onboard computer sampling, torque rod command quantization, lag and saturation. Sensing and torque events are separated in time to prevent contamination of magnetometer data. Air bearing tests are planned for final performance verification. The control system hardware and software represent a minimum cost approach to spacecraft attitude control

Gain Selection for Attitude Stabilization of Earth-Pointing Spacecraft Using Magnetorquers

AbstractThis paper considers a feedback control law that achieves attitude stabilization for Earth-pointing spacecraft using only magnetorquers as torque actuators. The control law is proportional derivative (PD)-like with matrix gains, and it guarantees asymptotic stability. The PD matrix gains are determined through the numerical solution of a periodic linear quadric regulator problem. A case study shows the effectiveness of the considered control law, and specifically of the gain selection method, in a simplified simulation scenario

Robust Three-axis Attitude Stabilization for Inertial Pointing Spacecraft Using Magnetorquers

In this work feedback control laws are designed for achieving three-axis attitude stabilization of inertial pointing spacecraft using only magnetic torquers. The designs are based on an almost periodic model of geomagnetic field along the spacecraft's orbit. Both attitude plus attitude rate feedback, and attitude only feedback are proposed. Both feedback laws achieve local exponential stability robustly with respect to large uncertainties in the spacecraft's inertia matrix. The latter properties are proved using general averaging and Lyapunov stability. Simulations are included to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms

Model predictive control of low Earth-orbiting satellites using magnetic actuation

This paper presents a model predictive control approach for regulating the attitude of magnetically actuated satellites. Unlike other contributions in this area, a predictive control approach is developed which guarantees closed-loop stability of satellite configurations with unstable open-loop pitch dynamics. With the pitch axis being unstable, two magnetic dipoles are used exclusively for regulation of this axis. This allows the dynamics to be treated as a linear time-invariant system, and a simple proportional–derivative (PD) scheme is implemented. A model predictive controller is designed to regulate the lateral dynamics, with a Lyapunov function derived to guarantee asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. The regulation of the lateral dynamics is achieved with a singe dipole moment, with a novel reformulation of the lateral dynamics also providing an explicit link between the two controllers. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness and stability of the proposed algorithm when applied to the European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite

Suboptimal predictive control for satellite detumbling

Rate damping in the initial acquisition phase of a magnetically controlled small satellite is a big challenge for the control system. In this phase, the main difficulties are dynamic nonlinearities due to high body rates, time-varying control due to the change in Earths magnetic field, inherent underactuation, and constraints on available power. The control system is required to minimize the detumbling time with minimal use of onboard resources. In comparison to the existing control techniques used in the initial acquisition phase, predictive control can be considered a suitable choice for handling such conflicting objectives in the presence of constraints. In this work, performance of two existing nonlinear model predictive control schemes that guarantee closed-loop stability are analyzed. Nonlinear model predictive control gives improved performance by reducing the detumbling time compared to classical control techniques based on the rate of change of Earths magnetic field; however, the computational requirements are high. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that, when the body rates increase, the computational burden of nonlinear model predictive control to reach an optimal point becomes prohibitively large. For these situations, an algorithm is presented that allows early termination of the optimizer by imposing an additional constraint on the cost reduction. The early termination criteria of the optimizer can be chosen based on the available computational resources. The imposed cost reduction constraint also helps in further reducing the detumbling time. Extensive numerical simulations show that the presented algorithm works well in practice for a good range of initial body rates. Copyright © 2013 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc

SPACECRAFT ATTITUDE CONTROL USING MAGNETIC ACTUATORS

This report presents a study on the problem of spacecraft attitude control using magnetic actuators. Several existing approaches are reviewed and one control strategy is implemented and simulated. A time-varying feedback control law achieving inertial pointing for magnetically actuated spacecraft is implemented. The report explains the modeling of the spacecraft rigid body dynamics, kinematics and attitude control in detail. Besides the fact that control laws have been established for stabilization around local equilibrium, this report presents the results of a control law that yields a generic, global solution for attitude stabilization of a magnetically actuated spacecraft. The report also involves the use MATLAB as a tool for both modeling and simulation of the spacecraft and controller. In conclusion, the simulation outlines the performance of the controller in independently stabilizing the spacecraft in three mutually perpendicular directions