Control of chaotic oscillations of a satellite

Analytical conditions and practical methods of their realization are proposed to solve a problem of a command signal tracking for a nonlinear disturbed system. Nonlinear disturbed plants consisting of linear dynamic block and nonlinear block in feedback are considered. Nonlinear part of the plant and disturbance are unknown and bounded. The paper illustrates a possibility of applications of proposed algorithms to control libration angle of satellite.

Sensor fault-tolerant observer applied in satellite attitude control

The observing failure and feedback instability might happen when the partial sensors of a satellite attitude control sys- tem （SACS） go wrong. A fault diagnosis and isolation （FDI） method based on a fault observer is introduced to detect and isolate the fault sensor at first. Based on the FDI result, the object system state-space equation is transformed and divided into a correspon- sive triangular canonical form to decouple the normal subsystem from the fault subsystem. And then the KX fault-tolerant observers of the system in different modes are designed and embedded into online monitoring. The outputs of all KX fault-tolerant observers are selected by the control switch process. That can make sense that the SACS is part-observed and in stable when the partial sen- sors break down. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

Thermal Design and Optimization of Heat Pipe Radiator for Satellites

Satellite＇s thermal control subsystem （TCS） has to maintain components and structure within their specified temperature limits during satellite service life. TCS designers have to face the challenge of reducing both the weight of the system and required heater power while keeping components temperature within their design range. For a space based heat pipe radiator system, several researchers have published different approaches to reach such goal. This paper presents a thermal design and optimization of a heat pipe radiator applied to a practical engineering design application. For this study, a prospective communication satellite payload panel with applied passive thermal control techniques was considered. The thermal passive techniques used in this design mainly include multilayer insulation （MLI） blankets, optical solar reflectors （OSR）, selected thermal coatings, interface fillers and constant conductance heat pipes. The heat pipe network is comprised of some heat pipes embedded in the panel and some mounted on inner surface of the panel. Embedded heat pipes are placed under high heat dissipation equipments and their size is fixed; minimum weight of the radiator is achieved by a minimum weight of the mounted heat pipes. Hence, size of the mounted heat pipes is optimized. A thermal model was built and parameterized for transient thermal analysis and optimization. Temperature requirements of components in both worst case conditions （Hot case and cold case） were satisfied under optimal sizing of mounted heat pipes.

Progress on the use of satellite technology for gravity exploration

In this paper, the technological progress on Chinese gravity exploration satellites is presented. Novel features such as ultra-stable structure, high accurate thermal control, drag-free and attitude control, micro-thrusters, aerodynamic configuration, the ability to perform micro-vibration analyses, microwave ranging system and mass center trimmer are described.

Hybrid robust fault detection and isolation of satellite reaction wheel actuators

In this paper,a combined robust fault detection and isolation scheme is studied for satellite system subject to actuator faults,external disturbances,and parametric uncertainties.The proposed methodology incorporates a residual generation module,including a bank of filters,into an intelligent residual evaluation module.First,residual filters are designed based on an improved nonlinear differential algebraic approach so that they are not affected by external disturbances.The residual evaluation module is developed based on the suggested series and parallel forms.Further,a new ensemble classification scheme defined as blended learning integrates heterogeneous classifiers to enhance the performance.A wide range of simulations is carried out in a high-fidelity satellite simulator subject to the constant and time-varying actuator faults in the presence of disturbances,manoeuvres,uncertainties,and noises.The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust fault detection and isolation method compared to the traditional nonlinear differential algebraic approach.

Robust fault-tolerant attitude control for satellite with multiple uncertainties and actuator faults

In this paper,the satellite attitude control system subject to parametric perturbations,external disturbances,time-varying input delays,actuator faults and saturation is studied.In order to make the controller architecture simple and practical,the closed-loop system is transformed into a disturbance-free nominal system and an equivalent disturbance firstly.The equivalent disturbance represents all above uncertainties and actuator failures of the original system.Then a robust controller is proposed in a simple composition consisting of a nominal controller and a robust compensator.The nominal controller is designed for the transformed nominal system.The robust compensator is developed from a second-order filter to restrict the influence of the equivalent disturbance.Stability analysis indicates that both attitude tracking errors and compensator states can converge into the given neighborhood of the origin in finite time.To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control law,numerical simulations are carried out in different cases.Presented results demonstrate that the high-precision attitude tracking control can be achieved by the proposed fault-tolerant control law.Furthermore,multiple system performances including the control accuracy and energy consumption index are fully discussed under a series of compensator parameters.

Design and experiments of an active isolator for satellite micro-vibration

In this paper, a soft active isolator（SAI） derived from a voice coil motor is studied to determine its abilities as a micro-vibration isolation device for sensitive satellite payloads. Firstly,the two most important parts of the SAI, the mechanical unit and the low-noise driver, are designed and manufactured. Then, a rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model of the SAI is built, and a dynamic analysis is conducted. Furthermore, a controller with a sky-hook damper is designed. Finally,results from the performance tests of the mechanical/electronic parts and the isolation experiments are presented. The SAI attenuations are found to be more than 20 d B above 5 Hz, and the control effect is stable.

An LMI-based decoupling control for electromagnetic formation flight

Electromagnetic formation flight （EMFF） leverages electromagnetic force to control the relative position of satellites. EMFF offers a promising alternative to traditional propellant-based spacecraft flight formation. This novel strategy is very attractive since it does not consume fuel. Due to the highly coupled nonlinearity of electromagnetic force, it is difficult to individually design a controller for one satellite without considering others, which poses challenges to communications. This paper is devoted to decoupling control of EMFF, including regulations, constraints and con- troller design. A learning-based adaptive sliding mode decoupling controller is analyzed to illustrate the problem of existing results, and input rate saturation is introduced to guarantee the validity of frequency division technique. Through transformation, the imposed input rate saturation is con- verted to state and input constraints. A linear matrix inequalities （LMI）-based robust optimal con- trol method can then be used and improved to solve the transformed problem. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed decoupling control.

A novel two-stage extended Kalman filter algorithm for reaction flywheels fault estimation

This paper investigates the problem of two-stage extended Kalman filter （TSEKF）-based fault estimation for reaction flywheels in satellite attitude control systems （ACSs）. Firstly, based on the separate-bias principle, a satellite ACSs with actuator fault is transformed into an augmented nonlinear discrete stochastic model; then, a novel TSEKF is suggested such that it can simultane- ously estimate satellite attitude information and actuator faults no matter they are additive or mul- tiplicative; finally, the proposed approach is respectively applied to estimating bias faults and loss of effectiveness for reaction flywheels in satellite ACSs, and simulation results demonstrate the effec- tiveness of the proposed fault estimation approach.