Sharif Digital Repository

The problem of attitude determination (AD) has always been a challenging issue for space missions that is of importance either independently or for attitude control purposes. The problem of AD is generally focused from two aspects: measurement mechanisms (sensoring) and determination algorithms. From the former point of view, there exists a variety of measuring systems such as the Sun sensors, magnetometers, gyroscopes, star and horizon sensors that have been separately or collaboratively utilized for AD. Integrative usage of sensors not only can bring about added advantages in terms of accuracy, but also provides for estimates of attitude during special times such as the Sun eclipse. The... 

Attitude determination and control system (ADCS) design is usually based on using measurements provided by rate gyros or attitude sensors such as Sun, Earth-magnetic, Earthhorizon and star trackers. In many practical scenarios, vector measurements provided by attitude sensors and the corresponding reference vectors are available with time delay while the angular velocity is measured by Gyro without significant delay. Time delay can cause ADCS performance degradation and even instability of the closed-loop system. Due to the nonlinearity of satellite dynamics and kinematics, controller and observer design in presence of measurement delays has its own complexity. Hence, despite its... 

One of the key technologies in the future space missions is the formation flight of small satellites. Currently, widespread research in this field is being carried out and remarkable developments have been achieved. In the mentioned laboratory researches, satellite navigation is performed by conventional sensors like infrared and ultrasonic. Both of these sensors are of active type and energy consuming. Also, use of the ultrasonic sensors is impractical in space missions (due to vacuum condition). Therefore, as an alternative for space missions, visual sensors are good candidates. The main goal of this research is to present a method for the relative navigation in proximity operations in an... 

The problem of spacecraft attitude determination (AD) using thermal data is investigated. Given the Solar space environment, the key dominant mechanism of heat transfer will be radiation, in which the Sun and Earth are the major contributing heat sources that affect the satellite external surface temperatures. In this sense, the net heat fluxes (NHF) of a satellite surface that is insulated against any internal heat communication will only be related to these main radiating sources. In order to utilize the satellite temperature data for AD, a heat attitude model (HAM) that relates the satellite surfaces NHF to its attitude is developed using three orthogonal satellite surfaces. Assuming... 

This thesis deals with the attitude estimation based on low cost sensor for a micro satellite in a circular, low earth orbit (LEO) and sensor calibration. With two body problem theory and Quaternion formulation, rotational motion is modeled. In addition gravity gradient effect is considered on satellite orbital elements. Using a 3-axis MEMS-based magnetometer and a sun sensor as two measurement systems, low cost attitude estimation is proposed. Bias and Scale factor are presented to model deterministic sensor error and white Gaussian noise to model stochastic sensor error. It is shown that by sensor calibration the estimation accuracy will improve. Non-linear estimation methods EKF, SRUKF... 

This paper proposes a globally and exponentially convergent predictor observer for attitude and position estimation based on landmark measurements and velocity (angular and linear) readings. It is assumed that landmark measurements are available with time delay. The maximum value of the sensor delay under which the estimation error converges to zero is calculated. Synthesis of the observer is based on representation of the rigid-body kinematics and the sensor delay by a combination of ordinary and partial differential equations (ODE-PDE). An observability condition specifies necessary and sufficient landmark configuration for convergence of attitude and position estimation error to zero.... 

One of the major problems encountered in artificial intelligence is environment interaction. A sensible way for around-interaction is to collect information from sensors and make proper reactions. Generally, in the real world, an intelligent agent needs to know its pose. There are several ways to know the pose of an agent. One of them is based on the fusion of the output of an inertial sensor with the information retrieved from a camera. This leads to enhance the estimation of the pose of an agent. In this research different solutions for this problem are compared. Studies are done with the goal of attitude detection for vehicles and mini-robots, moving on planar surface. For this end, we... 

Attaining accurate information about satellite attitude is one of the most important requirements in space missions in order to improve the accuracy of the satellite control and mission objectives. Many different sensors such as sun sensor, star sensor, horizon sensor, etc. are used to estimate spacecraft’s attitude. Attitude estimation using temperature sensors is a topic that has recently been addressed by some related researchers because, they need less power and budget to operate in comparison with the other sensors.Accuracy and heat model performance improvement is the main purpose of this project. To achieve a more accurate perspective of space thermal model, and the way heat transfers... 

This paper presents an integrated attitude control and estimation of satellite by using adaptive neural fuzzy (ANFIS) logic, indeed a system which using ANFIS controller and estimator is considered then an ANFIS simulator that can control and estimate contemporary is supposed. ANFIS system has been trained by using data obtained from an optimal PID controller. Then ANFIS controller performance has been compared with the performance of a PID controller, the analogy has repeated in different situations such as noise and uncertainty. Results show that system with ANFIS controller is more optimal than PID’s in all these situations. After that ANFIS estimator is studied and results indicate the... 

The purpose of determining orientation and position of a rigid-body is specifying its attitude and position with respect to a specified reference frame in order to using in controller. Since there is no sensor that can directly measures the attitude and position, we have to estimate those variables by observers. In this thesis we derive a new and explicit neccesary and sufficient condition for observability of the rigid-body kinematic equation. Also we propose a new observer for estimating the attitude and position of the rigid-body. The special feature of the proposed estimator is that it use only a single landmark and is globally and exponentially stable. In the next step we study the... 

Satellite attitude determination means specifying its rotation relative to a known reference. To determine satellite attitude, gyroscope is used to measure angular velocity and attitude sensors such as sun sensor, magnetometer, star tracker and earth horizon scanner are used in order to obtain vector measurements. In kinematic control, satellite angular velocity is determined in a way that its attitude converges to desired attitude. Usually, gyroscope and attitude sensors measurements are contaminated by noise which leads to errors in satellite attitude estimation and control. In the literature, gyroscope and at least two vector meaurements are used to estimate and control the... 

Accurate and fast attitude estimation of a rigid body plays an essential role in the performance of a vehicle’s control system, especially aerospace vehicles. Ample works have been done to increase the accuracy and speed of the attitude estimation process, but all have been developed according to a model-based approach. This approach assumes that the torques acting on the body have a known dynamical model that is used for the attitude estimation. The purpose of the present research is to estimate the attitude via a model-free approach, i. e. dynamics of the torques acting on the body are no longer assumed to be known, and its learning is the next step. Thus, the problem formulation of this... 

Nonlinear state estimation algorithms developed based on Bayesian framework have been increasingly utilized in space navigation and attitude estimation to enhance the mission performance. However, successful implementation of these algorithms requires accurate knowledge of process and measurement noise statistical properties. As the satellites experience various systematic and environmental uncertainties on orbit, no priori information of noise characteristics is usually available. In this regard, adaptive estimation algorithms have been widely utilized to tune the planned noise properties according to the variable working conditions. Among various adaptation methods, innovation-based... 

The estimation of attitude and deformation of a flexible satellite using magnetometer and sun sensor data are studied in this thesis. To this end, the dynamical differential equations of the flexible satellite have been derived using Lagrange’s equation. These equations of motion are then utilized for the purpose of simulation and verification. After introducing the measurements equations, the observability of the satellite with flexible panels has been evaluated. Afterward, the attitude of the satellite body and deformation of the flexible panels have been estimated by EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) as well as UKF (Unscented Kalman Filter). The results show that the estimations using UKF are...