Increasing Slew Performance of Reaction Wheel Attitude Control Systems
Abstract
This thesis explores the physical and mathematical limitations of two common attitude control systems: one based on reaction wheels and another based on control moment gyroscopes (CMGs). The dynamics are derived from first principles and control algorithms for achieving maximum reaction wheel potential are discussed. The shaped eigenaxis input is utilized to establish baseline maneuver performance. A time-optimal shaped input is introduced and implemented in a feedback setting, subject to the limitations of the Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse control allocation. Finally, a feed-forward plus feedback controller is introduced to implement the time-optimal torque inputs directly to the reaction wheels. This obviates the need for the pseudo-inverse control allocation, and therefore exploits the total capacities of both the reaction wheel momentum envelope and torque envelope. These reaction wheel control approaches are compared with CMG performance to establish spacecraft size and slew parameters that make the use of reaction wheels a reasonable choice
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA589918
Entities
People
- Steven R. Crews Ii
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School