Full State-Feedback solution for a flywheel based satellite energy and attitude control scheme

Abstract

A hybrid system combining the energy and attitude control task uses flywheels to store energy and control the attitude of small satellites. Various journal papers containing previous works have recognized this combined architecture. However, due to the uncertainties of on-board performances, it is a challenge in terms of attitude pointing accuracy. Therefore, this paper focuses a full state-feedback control solution to increase the satellite attitude performances. Mathematical model and numerical treatments for full state-feedback control of combined energy and attitude regulating scheme for a small satellite are presented. Simulation results show that an enhanced pitch pointing accuracy can be achieved up to 0.0010 for the proposed control approach. The paper contains an over view of a flywheel architecture along with state space representation of the scheme. A brief description of conventional control scheme is also presented with sample simulated results for comparison. Design of a full state-feedback controller and analysis of simulated results are also presented to show the achieved attitude performances specifically.