Roto-Translational Control of Spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit Using Environmental Forces and Torques

Abstract

In this paper, relative orbit and attitude adaptive controllers are integrated to perform roto-translational maneuvers for CubeSats equipped with a Drag Maneuvering Device (DMD). The DMD enables the host CubeSat with modulation of aerodynamic forces/torques and gravity gradient torque. Adaptive controllers for independent orbital and attitude maneuvers are revisited to account for traslational-attitude coupling while compensating for uncertainty in parameters such as atmospheric density, drag/lift coefficients, location of the Center of Mass (CoM) and inertia matrix. Uniformly ultimately bounded convergence of the attitude error and relative orbit states is guaranteed by Lyapunov-based stability analysis for the integrated roto-translational maneuver. A simulation example of an along-track formation maneuver between two CubeSats with simultaneous attitude control using only environmental forces and torques is presented to validate the controller.

Neuro-fuzzy system based proportional derivative gain optimized attitude control of CubeSat under LEO perturbations

“…Satellite dynamics uses the condition of movement to stimulate the body frame angular velocity compared with the inertial frame by utilizing external torque. Inertial frame F i , orbit frame F o , and body reference frame F b are three major frames of interest for the attitude control of satellites [ 27 ]. Meanwhile, satellite kinematics is responsible for ascertaining the satellite attitude by handling the angular velocity data, which is the output of dynamics equations [ [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] ].…”