Nonlinear Spacecraft Attitude Control

Nonlinear Spacecraft Attitude Control

PhD in Aeronautical and Space Engineering

Hours of lecture
30

Period
June 3rd - July 5th, 2024

Time and place
Tuesdays, 10:00am -  1:00pm, Lecture room at first floor of E building
Thursdays, 10:00am -  1:00pm, Lecture room at first floor of E building
E building is at the Faculty of Civil and Industrial engineering, via Eudossiana 18

Office hours
Contact me to fix an appointment
e-mail: fabio.celani@uniroma1.it
ph.: +39 06 4991 9755

Learning objectives
Spacecraft attitude equations are in many situations given by nonlinear equations. However, spacecraft attitude control laws are often designed using a linear approximation of those equations about an operating condition. Thus, the effectiveness of the control laws can be guaranteed only for attitude angles and angular velocities close to the operating condition. There are occasions when the spacecraft motion involves attitude angles and angular velocities far from the operating condition. For those motions, the full nonlinear attitude equations must be used for evaluating the effectiveness of the control laws. This course presents the design of attitude control laws for two typical spacecraft operations along with basic tools useful to validate the designs with nonlinear attitude equations.

Requirements
It is required that students have a basic knowledge on spacecraft attitude dynamics.

Contents (tentative)
spacecraft detumbling, stability of nonlinear systems, Lyapunov theorems, spacecraft attitude regulation, Krasovskii-La Salle’s theorem, Lyapunov indirect method

Bibliography
Anton H. J. de Ruiter, Christopher J. Damaren, James R. Forbes. Spacecraft Dynamics and Control: an Introduction, Wiley, 2013.
F. Landis Markley, John L. Crassidis. Fundamentals of Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control, Springer, 2014.
Hanspeter Schaub, John L. Junkins. Analytical Mechanics of Space Systems, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2009.
Bong Wie. Space Vehicle Dynamics and Control, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2008.