Four reaction wheels placed in a tetrahedral configuration provide optimal three-axis spacecraft control redundancy
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Peer-reviewed literature establishes that reaction wheels are assembled in a tetrahedral configuration to provide redundancy for satellite attitude control and torque generation.
Abstract Reaction wheel is the most popular actuator for the attitude manoeuvring of a satellite system due to its compact size, reliability and able to produce precise torque. However, for redundancy purposes, the reaction wheels are assembled in a tetrahedral configuration that is able to generate torque in any direction even when one of the reaction wheel fails. The tetrahedral configured reaction wheel causes the maximum torque generation to be uneven in any direction. Hence, the quaternion rotation is completed at different rate in different direction. In order to optimize the rotation rate, an optimal control using iterative method via GPOPS toolbox. It is then compared with the traditional Eigen-axis Quaternion Feedback control. The improvement shown by the optimal control to be between 3.49% to 25.11% improvement in manoeuvre time depending on the direction of manoeuvre. The optimal control is able to outperform the traditional control method.
Abstract The increase in demand for performance for satellite capabilities has pushed the design of the system to be more power consuming. Currently, most of the satellite design are equipped with large solar panel in order to produce sufficient power. Thus, this translates to a higher flexibility in the satellite which makes the satellite prone to vibratory motion. The primary cause of vibratory motion in satellite is the attitude rotation. Reaction wheel is a widely used attitude rotation actuator for a satellite Commonly, the reaction wheels are configured in the tetrahedral form. This causes uneven maximum torque at any direction. Hence, an iterative optimal control method is applied using GPOPS toolbox to achieve minimum time of rotation with low level of induced vibratory motion. The optimized control is compared with the Eigen-axis Quaternion Feedback control to observe the performance of the optimal control. Depending on the direction of attitude manoeuvre, the optimal control has shown an improvement between 3.49% to 25.11% in manoeuvre time. Overall, the optimal control outperformed the traditional the Eigen-axis Quaternion Feedback control.
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