• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.484-490
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• 2012

This paper is devoted to investigate the feasibility of using a medium power ground-based laser to produce a torque on LEO satellites of various shapes. The laser intensity delivered to a satellite is calculated using a simple model of laser propagation in which a standard atmospheric condition and linear atmospheric interaction mechanism is assumed. The laser force is formulated using a geocentric equatorial system in which the Earth is an oblate spheroid. The torque is formulated for a cylindrical satellite, spherical satellites and for satellites of complex shape. The torque algorithm is implemented for some sun synchronous low Earth orbit cubesats. Based on satellites perigee height, the results demonstrate that laser torque affecting on a cubesat has a maximum value in the order of $10^{-9}$ which is comparable with that of solar radiation. However, it has a minimum value in the order of $10^{-10}$ which is comparable with that of gravity gradient. Moreover, the results clarify the dependency of the laser torque on the orbital eccentricity. As the orbit becomes more circular it will experience less torque. So, we can conclude that the ground based laser torque has a significant contribution on the low Earth orbit cubesats. It can be adjusted to obtain the required control torque and it can be used as an active attitude control system for cubesats.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.193-200
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• 2011

The external disturbance torque acting on a low earth orbit spacecraft was analyzed. For the Earth pointing attitude, the maximum torque to the spacecraft is about $8.3{\times}10^{-4}$ Nms and the momentum accumulated for an orbit is about 1.4 Nms and for the Sun pointing attitude, the maximum torque to the spacecraft is about $1.6{\times}10^{-3}$ Nms and the momentum is accumulated about 3.0 Nms in the spacecraft body reference frame. The analysis results confirm that the size of magnetic torquer selected previously for the satellite is sufficient to manage the accumulated momentum by considering the dumping capacity for an orbit.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.54-62
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• 2003

The satellite in space has a tiny size but is subject to the disturbance torques caused by various sources. The presence of environmental disturbance torques significantly affects the orient as well as the orbital motion of satellite. The sources of environmental effects on LEO Satellite attitude dynamics are various. Four of these, gravity gradient, Earth's magnetic field, solar radiation pressure and aerodynamic are dominant and deterministic. In this study, we describe the model of environmental disturbance torques acting on LEO Satellite and the effects of environmental disturbance torques on LEO Satellite attitude dynamics in detail.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.99-109
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• 2003

Attitude control law synthesis for the three-axis attitude maneuver of a flexible spacecraft model is presented in this study. The basic idea is motivated by previous works for the extension into a more general case. The new case includes gravitational gradient torque which has significant effect on a wide range of low earth orbit missions. As the first step, the fully nonlinear dynamic equations of motion are derived including gravitational gradient. The control law design based upon the Lyapunov approach is attempted. The Lyapunov function consists of a weighted combination of system kinetic and potential energy. Then, a set of stabilizing control law is derived from the basic Lyapunov stability theory. The new control law is therefore in a general form partially validating the previous work in some sense.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.36.1-36.1
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• 2008

An Unscented Kalman Filter(UKF) for estimation of attitude and rate of a spacecraft using only magnetometer vector measurement is presented. The dynamics used in the filter is nonlinear rotational equation which is augmented by the quaternion kinematics to construct a process model. The filter is designed for low Earth orbit satellite, so the disturbance torques include gravity-gradient torque, magnetic disturbance torque, and aerodynamic drag. The magnetometer measurements are simulated based on time-varying position of the spacecraft. The filter has been tested not only in the standby mode but also in the detumbling mode. To stabilize the attitude, linear PD controller is applied and the actuator is assumed to be thruster. A Monte-Carlo simulation has been done to guarantee the stability of the filter performance to the various initial conditions. The UKF performance is compared to that of EKF and it reveals that UKF outperforms EKF.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2009

An Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for estimation of the attitude and rate of a spacecraft using only magnetometer vector measurement is developed. The attitude dynamics used in the estimation is the nonlinear Euler's rotational equation which is augmented with the quaternion kinematics to construct a process model. The filter is designed for small satellite in low Earth orbit, so the disturbance torques include gravity-gradient torque, magnetic disturbance torque, and aerodynamic drag torque. The magnetometer measurements are simulated based on time-varying position of the spacecraft. The filter has been tested not only in the standby mode but also in the detumbling mode. Two types of actuators have been modeled and applied in the simulation. The PD controller is used for the two types of actuators (reaction wheels and thrusters) to detumble the spacecraft. The estimation error converged to within 5 deg for attitude and 0.1 deg/s for rate respectively when the two types of actuators were used. A joint state parameter estimation has been tested and the effect of the process noise covariance on the parameter estimation has been indicated. Also, Monte-Carlo simulations have been performed to test the capability of the filter to converge with the initial conditions sampled from a uniform distribution. Finally, the UKF performance has been compared to that of the EKF and it demonstrates that UKF slightly outperforms EKF. The developed algorithm can be applied to any type of small satellites that are actuated by magnetic torquers, reaction wheels or thrusters with a capability of magnetometer vector measurements for attitude and rate estimation.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1641-1644
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• 2005

Magnetic actuation utilizes the mechanic torque that is the result of interaction of the current in a coil with an external magnetic field. A main obstacle is, however, that torques can only be produced perpendicular to the magnetic field. In addition, there is uncertainty in the Earth magnetic field models due to the complicated dynamic nature of the field. Also, the magnetic hardware and the spacecraft can interact, causing both to behave in undesirable ways. This actuation principle has been a topic of research since earliest satellites were launched. Earlier magnetic control has been applied for nutation damping for gravity gradient stabilized satellites, and for velocity decrease for satellites without appendages. The three axes of a micro-satellite can be stabilized by using an electromagnetic actuator which is rigidly mounted on the structure of the satellite. The actuator consists of three mutually-orthogonal air-cored coils on the skin of the satellite. The coils are excited so that the orbital frame magnetic field and body frame magnetic field coincides i.e. to make the Euler angles to zero. This can be done using a Neural Network controller trained by PD controller data and driven by the difference between the orbital and body frame magnetic fields.