Reconfiguration of Redundant Thrusters by Allocation Method

Thrusters are important actuators where air is rare. Since the maintenance or replacement of thrusters is not easy in such an environment, a thrusting system must be highly reliable. Redundant thrusters are used to meet the reliability requirement. In this paper, a reconfiguration problem for those redundant thrusters is discussed, especially the management or distribution logic of redundant thrusters is focused on. The logic has to be changed if faults occur at thrusters. Reconfiguration is to change the distribution logic to accommodate thrusters' faults. The authors propose a reconfiguration algorithm based on the linear programming method. The authors define the reconfiguration problem as an optimization problem. The performance index is a quantity related with total fuel consumption by thrusters. This algorithm can accommodate multiple faults. Numerical examples are given to show the advantage of the proposed algorithm over existing methods.