Spacecraft Attitude Stabilization with Piecewise-constant Magnetic Dipole Moment

TL;DR

This paper develops spacecraft attitude stabilization laws using magnetic actuators with piecewise-constant magnetic dipole moments, addressing practical measurement and actuation constraints for improved control system design.

Contribution

It introduces new attitude stabilization laws that incorporate the piecewise-constant magnetic dipole moment constraint, including both state and output feedback methods.

Findings

Systematic sampling period selection method

Effective attitude stabilization with magnetic actuators

Designs accommodate measurement and actuation separation constraints

Abstract

In actual implementations of magnetic control laws for spacecraft attitude stabilization, the time in which Earth magnetic field is measured must be separated from the time in which magnetic dipole moment is generated. The latter separation translates into the constraint of being able to genere only piecewise-constant magnetic dipole moment. In this work we present attitude stabilization laws using only magnetic actuators that take into account of the latter aspect. Both a state feedback and an output feedback are presented, and it is shown that the proposed design allows for a systematic selection of the sampling period.