Air Bearing Based Satellite Attitude Dynamics Simulator for Control Software Research and Development
Abstract
A Satellite Attitude Dynamics Simulator (SADS) has been developed to facilitate the research and development of spacecraft
flight attitude control software at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. The simulator provides a real-time 3 degree of freedom (3DOF) synthetic spacecraft hardware-in-the-loop environment, that includes realistic angular motions, sensor-effector delays, and control torque profiles. Control software, entered into a notebook PC mounted on the equipment platform, is input as high level object oriented code, allowing rapid code development and thorough post-test analysis. Three flight-like reaction wheels and eight cold-gas thrusters that are mounted to the SADS equipment platform provide motion simulation torque. The equipment platform is suspended in air by a spherical segment air bearing. This virtually frictionless suspension allows free rotation of the equipment platform about any rotation axis. Three separate sets of sensors, three single-axis rate gyros, a three-axis magnetometer, and a two-axis sun sensor monitor SADS platform motion. This paper discusses the SADS design, and the practical uses of this simulator for satellite attitude control system software research and development.A Satellite Attitude Dynamics Simulator (SADS) has been developed to facilitate the research and development of spacecraft
flight attitude control software at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. The simulator provides a real-time 3 degree of freedom (3DOF) synthetic spacecraft hardware-in-the-loop environment, that includes realistic angular motions, sensor-effector delays, and control torque profiles. Control software, entered into a notebook PC mounted on the equipment platform, is input as high level object oriented code, allowing rapid code development and thorough post-test analysis. Three flight-like reaction wheels and eight cold-gas thrusters that are mounted to the SADS equipment platform provide motion simulation torque. The equipment platform is suspended in air by a spherical segment air bearing. This virtually frictionless suspension allows free rotation of the equipment platform about any rotation axis. Three separate sets of sensors, three single-axis rate gyros, a three-axis magnetometer, and a two-axis sun sensor monitor SADS platform motion. This paper discusses the SADS design, and the practical uses of this simulator for satellite attitude control system software research and development.
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.438072
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, is not copyrighted in the U.S.Related items
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