Lorentz Force Based Satellite Attitude Control

Abstract

Since the inception of attitude control of a satellite, various active and passive control strategies have been developed. These include using thrusters, momentum wheels, control moment gyros and magnetic torquers. In this present work, a new technique named Lorentz force based Coulombic actuators for the active control is proposed. This method uses electrostatic charged shells, which interact with the time varying earth’s magnetic field to establish a full three axes control of the satellite. It is shown that the proposed actuation mechanism is similar to a satellite actuated by magnetic coils except that the resultant magnetic moment vanishes under two different conditions. The equation for the required charges on the the Coulomb shells attached to the satellite body axes is derived, which is in turn used to find the available control torque for actuating the satellite along the orbit. Stability of the proposed system for very high initial angular velocity and exponential stability about the origin are proved for a proportional-differential control input. Simulations are carried out to show the efficacy of the proposed system for the attitude control of the earth-pointing satellite.