Integrated Power and Attitude Control with Spacecraft Flywheels and Control Moment Gyroscopes

Abstract

A law is designed for simultaneous control of the orientation of an Earth-pointing spacecraft, the energy stored by counter-rotating flywheels, and the angular momentum of the flywheels and control moment gyroscopes used together as an integrated set of actuators for attitude control. General, nonlinear equations of motion are presented in vector-dyadic form and used to obtain approximate expressions that are then linearized in preparation for design of control laws that include feedback of flywheel kinetic energy error as a means of compensating for damping exerted by rotor bearings. Two flywheel steering laws are developed such that torque commanded by an attitude control law is applied while energy is stored or discharged at the required rate. With use of the International Space Station as an example, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate control about a torque equilibrium attitude and to illustrate the benefits of kinetic energy error feedback.