Reset and prescribed performance approach to spacecraft attitude regulation

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the attitude regulation for spacecraft in the presence of time-varying inertia uncertainty and exogenous disturbances. Design/methodology/approach The high gain approaches are typically used in existing researches for theoretical advantages, bringing better performance but sensitive to parameter selection, making the controller conservative. A reset-control policy is presented to achieve the spacecraft attitude control with easy control parameter tuning. Findings The reset-control policy guarantees satisfying control performance despite using performance tuning function and saturation function besides reducing the conservativeness of the controller, thus reducing the effort in tuning control parameters. Originality/value Notably, the adaptive function owns a reset mechanism, which is reset to a preset condition when the controlled variable crosses zero. The mathematical analysis also shows the system trajectory can converge to a set centered at the origin.

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Spacecraft attitude control with mutating orbital rate and actuator fading under Markovian jump framework

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology ◽

10.1108/aeat-12-2020-0299 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Chengxi Zhang ◽

Hui-Jie Sun ◽

Jin Wu ◽

Zhongyang Fei ◽

Yu Jiang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Control Problem ◽

Attitude Control ◽

Algorithm Design ◽

Control Policy ◽

Spacecraft Attitude ◽

Actuator Faults ◽

Spacecraft Attitude Control ◽

Dynamics Model ◽

Markovian Jump ◽

Content Type

Purpose This paper aims to study the attitude control problem with mutating orbital rate and actuator fading. Design/methodology/approach To avoid malicious physical attacks and hide itself, the spacecraft may irregularly switch its orbit altitude within a specific range, which will bring about variations in orbital rate, thereby causing mutations in the attitude dynamics model. The actuator faults will also cause changes in system dynamics. Both factors affect the control performance. First, this paper determines the potential switching orbits. Then under different conditions, design controllers that can accommodate actuator faults according to the statistical law of actuator fading. Findings This paper, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, introduces the Markovian jump framework to model the possible unexpected mutating of orbital rate and actuator fading of spacecraft and then designs a novel control policy to solve the attitude control problem. Practical implications This paper also provides the algorithm design processes in detail. A comparative numerical simulation is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Originality/value This is an early solution for spacecraft attitude control with dynamics model mutations.

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Observer-based reaction wheel fault reconstruction for spacecraft attitude control systems

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology ◽

10.1108/aeat-07-2018-0203 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 91 (10) ◽

pp. 1268-1277

Author(s):

Qingxian Jia ◽

Huayi Li ◽

Xueqin Chen ◽

Yingchun Zhang

Keyword(s):

Control Systems ◽

Attitude Control ◽

Spacecraft Attitude ◽

Spacecraft Attitude Control ◽

Attitude Dynamics ◽

Reaction Wheel ◽

Content Type ◽

Fault Reconstruction ◽

Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics ◽

Non Linear

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to achieve fault reconstruction for reaction wheels in spacecraft attitude control systems (ACSs) subject to space disturbance torques. Design/methodology/approach Considering the influence of rotating reaction wheels on spacecraft attitude dynamics, a novel non-linear learning observer is suggested to robustly reconstruct the loss of reaction wheel effectiveness faults, and its stability is proven using Lyapunov’s indirect method. Further, an extension of the proposed approach to bias faults reconstruction for reaction wheels in spacecraft ACSs is performed. Findings The numerical example and simulation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fault-reconstructing methods. Practical implications This paper includes implications for the development of reliability and survivability of on-orbit spacecrafts. Originality/value This paper proposes a novel non-linear learning observer-based reaction wheels fault reconstruction for spacecraft ACSs.

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Constructive schemes to spacecraft attitude control with low communication frequency using sampled-data and encryption approaches

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology ◽

10.1108/aeat-08-2020-0157 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Chengxi Zhang ◽

Jin Wu ◽

Yulong Huang ◽

Yu Jiang ◽

Ming-zhe Dai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Control Systems ◽

Attitude Control ◽

Spacecraft Attitude ◽

Sampled Data ◽

Spacecraft Attitude Control ◽

Control Loop ◽

Content Type ◽

Control Schemes ◽

Communication Frequency ◽

Event Triggered

Purpose Recent spacecraft attitude control systems tend to use wireless communication for cost-saving and distributed mission purposes while encountering limited communication resources and data exposure issues. This paper aims to study the attitude control problem with low communication frequency under the sampled-data. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose constructive control system structures based on quantization and event-triggered methods for intra-spacecraft and multi-spacecraft systems, and they also provide potential solutions to shield the control system's data security. The proposed control architectures can effectively save communication resources for both intra-spacecraft and multi-spacecraft systems. Findings The proposed control architectures no longer require sensors with trigger-ing mechanism and can achieve distributed control schemes. This paper also provides proposals of employing the public key encryption to secure the data in control-loop, which is transmitted by the event-triggered control mechanism. Practical implications Spacecraft attempts to use wireless communication, yet the attitude control system does not follow up promptly to accommodate these variations. Compared with existing approaches, the proposed control structures can save communication resources of control-loop in multi-sections effectively, and systematically, by rationally configuring the location of quantization and event-triggered mechanisms. Originality/value This paper presents several new control schemes and a necessary condition for the employment of encryption algorithms for control systems based on event-based communication.

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Actuator model for spacecraft attitude control simulation

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology ◽

10.1108/aeat-10-2020-0226 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Chengxi Zhang ◽

Jin Wu ◽

Ran Sun ◽

Mingjiang Wang ◽

Dechao Ran

Keyword(s):

Attitude Control ◽

Spacecraft Attitude ◽

Spacecraft Attitude Control ◽

Spacecraft Control ◽

Content Type ◽

Actuator Dynamics ◽

Control Simulation ◽

Proposed Model ◽

Dynamic Time ◽

Actuator Module

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the general actuator modeling in spacecraft attitude control systems. Design/methodology/approach The proposed module in this paper provides various non-ideal factors such as the second-order dynamic time response, time-delay, bias torques, dead-zones and saturation. The actuator module can make the simulation as close to the practical situation as possible. Findings This paper presents a practical integrated module for the simulation of attitude control algorithms. Based on theoretical modeling, we give simulation modules and numerical examples. The proposed model can be directly used in spacecraft control simulation. Instead of considering only a few of them, it makes the simulation more convincing. Though it may not be perfect, it is better than totally ignoring the actuator dynamics. Originality/value The authors provide an integrated actuator model for spacecraft attitude control simulation, considering as many nonlinear factors as possible once time.

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