Coupled Control of Reflectivity Modulated Solar Sail for GeoSail Formation Flying

Heliocentric trajectory analysis of Sun-pointing smart dust with electrochromic control

“…On the other side, when the electrochromic system is switched on, the reflectivity coefficient takes its maximum admissible value g max 6 2, where g max ¼ 2 corresponds to a completely reflective surface. In this sense, the heliocentric orbital dynamics of a SD spacecraft is consistent with the dynamics of a photonic solar sail with reflection control devices (Aliasi et al, 2013;Gong and Li, 2015;Gong and Li, 2014a,b;Mu et al, 2015). In this paper the SD geometry is chosen such that the external force due to the solar radiation pressure is always aligned with the Sun-SD line.…”

Dynamics and control of flexible spinning solar sails under reflectivity modulation

“…In comparison with the previous studies (Mu and Gong, 2014a;Mu and Gong, 2013), the dynamics and control of the flexible sails are investigated in the application of GeoSail formation flying (Gong et al, 2011). A deputy sail is controlled to track a reference orbit around the primary sail.…”

“…Each parameter determines the amount of RCDs to be switched to the opposite optical state of a normal membrane in its own arc. The four parameters can be combined into three independent control variables u, u x , and u y , to implement the coupled orbit and attitude control of the sail (Mu, Gong, 2014a).…”

“…Once the control variables obtained by the control law for ideal sails are obtained, they can be used as control inputs for nonlinear orbit-attitude-vibration dynamics for the deputy flexible solar sail. The relative orbit-attitude dynamics for ideal sails in GeoSail formation can be described as (Mu and Gong, 2014a)…”

Equilibria near asteroids for solar sails with reflection control devices

“…The RCD was mounted on the edge of the sail membrane to generate a torque by changing the induced force on each small element's surface by switching between on and off states (Mimasu et al 2011). The idea of using the RCD for orbit control and attitude-orbit control was discussed in the GeoSail Mission (Mu et al 2013(Mu et al , 2014 and the Artificial Lagrange Point Mission (Aliasi et al 2013;Gong and Li 2014b).…”