Design and implementation of attitude stabilization system for marine satellite tracking antenna

Abstract

Marine Satellite Tracking Antenna (MSTA) is an important shipboard device for ships to bidirectionally communicate with the outside. The attitude stabilization system is an important part of MSTA for keeping the antenna dish tracking the geostationary satellite in the presence of severe ship dynamics. In this paper, the designed high-performance attitude stabilization system is introduced, including hardware system, model identification and controller design. The detailed procedure for identifying the stepper motor model is stated, which is different from conventional procedure. The design procedure of the robust controller based on H∞ loop shaping is given. The designed attitude stabilization system was tested on a Stewart platform that was used as the ship simulator. From the testing results, it can be seen that the performance of designed attitude stabilization system is very high and the tracking angle error can be limited to within ±0.15 deg, which satisfies the performance requirements of Ka-band MSTA product.