Model Based Active Slosh Damping Experiment

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an active damping strategy using force feedback to control fluid sloshing in spacecraft tanks, improving maneuvering and pointing performance while addressing stability and propellant consumption issues.

Contribution

It introduces a novel active control approach for fluid slosh management using force sensors and robust control design methods, validated through simulation and experimental testing.

Findings

Active damping reduces slosh resonance amplitudes.

Force feedback control improves spacecraft maneuverability.

Experimental results confirm control effectiveness in real tank setup.

Abstract

This paper presents a model based experimental investigation to demonstrate the usefulness of an active damping strategy to manage fluid sloshing motion in spacecraft tanks. The active damping strategy is designed to reduce the degrading impact on maneuvering and pointing performance via a force feedback strategy. Many problems have been encountered until now, such as instability of the closed loop system, excessive consumption in the attitude propellant or problems for engine re-ignition in upper stages. Mostly, they have been addressed in a passive way via the design of baffles and membranes, which on their own have mass and constructive impacts. Active management of propellant motion in launchers and satellites has the potential to increase performance on various levels. This paper demonstrates active slosh management using force feedback for the compensation of the slosh resonances. Force sensors between tank and the carrying structure provide information of the fluid motion via the reaction force. The control system is designed to generate an appropriate acceleration profile that leads to desired attenuation profiles in amplitude, frequency and time. Two robust control design methods, one based on $\mu$ design and the other on parametric structured design based on non-smooth optimization of the worst-case $H_{\infty}$ norm, are applied. The controller is first tested with a computational fluid dynamics simulation in the loop. Finally a water tank mounted on a Hexapod with up to $1100$ liter is used to evaluate the control performance. The paper illustrates that is possible to actively influence sloshing via closed loop.