A Roll and Pitch Attitude Control Scheme for a Synchronous, Flywheel Stabilized, Communication Satellite

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of synthesising a control scheme well fitted to the long-range mission of the station keeping of a synchronous, flywheel yaw-stabilized communication satellite. This particular type of mission imposes drastic constraints upon on-board equipment and its technology: a minimum number of attitude sensors should be used, while stringent conditions are imposed upon the precision of the attitude by the communication equipment’s operation. Furthermore, the fuel consumption should be kept to a minimum, whereas the propulsive equipment should be as light and reliable as possible.

These various considerations have lead the authors to devise a pulse-width-modulated control law operating gas jets: the control scheme, fully non-linear, takes advantage of the interaction properties of the system, and operates in a sequential pattern from the data collected from one angular sensor and one angular accelerometer.

Finally, complete hybrid and digital simulations have been simultaneously conducted to verify that the proposed control scheme indeed allows to meet the specifications in precision of attitude control.