Improving the spacecraft attitude control performance with on-off thruster actuator and fractional order pulse-width pulse-frequency modulator

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Vahid Bohlouri
Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical and Vocational University (TVU), Tehran, Iran
10.22034/stme.2024.448866.1058
Abstract
 This article, the problem of controlling the attitude of a spacecraft with integral pulse width and frequency integrator is investigated and the said integrator is developed as a fractional order. The spacecraft is controlled by a two-state on-off thruster actuator with a combination of proportional-derivative law and integrator. In order to focus more on studying the behavior of the proposed integrator, the operator model is ideally considered, although it is due to the use of a nonlinear control system integrator. Average fuel consumption and operator activity are included as two main evaluation indicators, and on the other hand, the absolute average value of the sign error on spacecraft attitude is also included as another important indicator in the study of the behavior of the proposed integrator. In order to compare the results fairly, the situation control problem has been done for the same assumed conditions and for the integrator of integer order and fractional order. The comparative results for changing the fractional power of the fractional order integrator filter and checking the three performance criteria have been done. Also, the influence of the uncertainty of the moment of inertia of the spacecraft, the uncertainty of the reference entry angle and the range of external disturbances have also been studied. The obtained results indicate the change of the performance criterion for changing the order of the fractional combiner filter and show the more appropriate performance of the proposed modulator for a range of fractional powers. 
Keywords
Spacecraft attitude control
Pulse-width pulse-frequency modulator
Fractional order
Pointing
Proportional-derivative control
Subjects
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Science and Technology in Mechanical Engineering
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Serial Number 3
February 2023
Pages 21-32

  • Receive Date 16 March 2024
  • Revise Date 15 June 2024
  • Accept Date 11 February 2024
  • First Publish Date 11 February 2024
  • Publish Date 21 January 2024