Magnetic Attitude Control for Satellites in Polar or Sun-Synchronous Orbits

Abstract

In this work, a new law for magnetic control of satellites in near-polar orbits is presented. This law has been developed for the UMPSat-2 microsatellite, which has been designed and manufactured by Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid. The control law is a modification of the B-dot strategy that enables the satellite to control the rotation rate. Besides, the satellite's equilibrium state is characterized by having the rotation axis perpendicular to the orbit's plane. The control law described in the present work only needs magnetometers and magnetorquers, as sensors and actuators, respectively, to carry out a successful attitude control on the spacecraft A description of the analysis is included. Performance and applicability of the proposed method have been demonstrated by control dynamics together with Monte Carlo techniques and by implementing the control law in the UPMSat-2 mission simulator. Results show good performance in terms of acquisition and stability of the satellite rotation rate and orientation with respect to its orbit's plane.

Design and Development of a 5-Channel Arduino-Based Data Acquisition System (ABDAS) for Experimental Aerodynamics Research

“…The common work at the IDR/UPM Institute, related to experimental aerodynamics [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ], cup anemometer calibration and behavior characterization [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], space components analysis (batteries, solar panels, control systems) [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ], and space thermal analysis [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ], has driven the development of the 5-channel Arduino-Based Data Acquisition System (ABDAS) described in the present paper. The purpose of this development is to have a simple but accurate multi-purpose 10–500 Hz sampling rate voltage-data acquisition system capable of being used in different measurement problems from measuring temperatures with thermocouples to wind-tunnel pitot-tube pressure signals.…”

Fully magnetic attitude control subsystem for picosat platforms

“…However, if large rotations or high angular rates (e.g. initial satellite de-tumbling), high nonlinearities are involved and nonlinear control techniques are needed (Cubas et al, 2015). In particular, it should be noted that one of the most used nonlinear strategies is the well-known B-dot control law (Stickler, 1972;Stickler and Alfriend, 1976), which is characterized by its simplicity and is very e↵ective to dump the spacecraft's angular velocity (Flatley et al, 1997).…”

Magnetic Attitude Control with Impulsive Thrusting Using the Hybrid Passivity Theorem

“…Another practical application to three-axis stabilization of spacecraft was in the Ørsted satellite mission that was launched in 1999 [21][22][23]. A very recent application, discussed in [24], was in the design of UPMSat-2, which was a microsatellite scheduled for launch in 2015 that relied only on magnetic torquers and magnetometers with new laws based on modifications of the classical B-dot control (originally proposed in [25], with control inputs proportional to the derivative of the magnetic field vector).…”