Sharif Digital Repository

To increase crew efficiency during a long duration space mission, we have developed a Sequence Dependent Structured Matrix (SDSM) which enables designers to quickly derive the shortest paths astronauts (mission specialists) need to perform their daily tasks. This research aims to develop a new efficient tool by combining two or more DSM interpretations which help increase the ability of proper decision makings for complex situations as space travel. The results of this work have been used for arranging crew quarters in the spacecraft suited for Mars mission. In the same approach, we have been able to generalize the concept and construct different specific types of DSM; such as, Astronauts'... 

Ultimate state boundedness for underactuated spacecraft subject to large non-matched disturbances is attained. First, non-smooth time-invariant state feedback control laws that make the origin asymptotically stable are obtained. Then, the controller is extended to make the closed-loop system globally uniformly ultimately bounded under the following conditions: 1) the disturbances acting on the directly actuated states are known and 2) the disturbance acting on the unactuated state is bounded and its profile need not be known. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to verify the analytical results. A large step disturbance is considered, and it is shown that the proposed controller... 

Reducing the burden of the remaining actuators through decreasing the performance gracefully is an important field in active fault tolerant control. According to the literature, two important points have been identified in the works considering graceful performance degradation: 1) using single-objective optimization, 2) assuming an engineering insight into the performance of the faulty system. This paper has two contributions: First, it is shown that in some cases, single-objective optimization may not be able to provide a satisfactory solution for the problem. Second, a new systematic and general method is proposed to remove the need for the engineering insight. The proposed method is based... 

This paper presents an orbit estimation using non-simultaneous horizon detector measurements in the presence of uncertainties in the celestial body rotational velocity and its geometrical characteristics. The celestial body is modeled as a tri-axial ellipsoid with a three-dimensional force field. The non-simultaneous modelling provides the possibility to consider the time gap between horizon measurements. An unscented Kalman filter is used to estimate the spacecraft state variables and the geometric characteristics as well as the rotational velocity vector of the celestial body. A Monte-Carlo simulation is implemented to verify the results. Simulations showed that using non-simultaneous... 

The problem of spacecraftformation control and reconfiguration for halo orbit around the second libration point (L2) of the Sun-Earth Three Body (TB) system is investigated. Station keeping, reconfigu-ration and precision formation control of spacecrafts on halo orbits are performed via the use of the nonlinear Integral Sliding Mode (ISM) method as well as the optimal closed loop Linear Quadratic Regulator(LQR) approach. In this regard the nonlinear relative dynamics of deputy-chief spacecrafts are derived within the concept of the three body problem. The behavior of the two controllers are compared for different tasks of the formation mission in order to determine the more preferred... 

This paper deals with the impulsive formation control of spacecraft in the presence of constraints on the position vector and time. Determining a set of path constraints can increase the safety and reliability in an impulsive relative motion of spacecraft. Specially, the feasibility problem of the position norm constraints is considered in this paper. Under assumptions, it is proved that if a position vector be reachable, then the reach time and the corresponding time of impulses are unique. The trajectory boundedness of the spacecraft between adjacent impulses are analyzed using the Gerschgorin and the Rayleigh-Ritz theorems as well as a finite form of the Jensen's inequality. Some... 

In the aspect of further development of investigations in the area of spacecraft modeling and analysis of the control scheme, a new hybrid finite-time robust three-axis cascade attitude control approach is proposed via pulse modulation synthesis. The full quaternion based control approach proposed here is organized in association with both the inner and the outer closed loops. It is shown that the inner closed loop, which consists of the sliding mode finite-time control approach, the pulse width pulse frequency modulator, the control allocation and finally the dynamics of the spacecraft is realized to track the three-axis referenced commands of the angular velocities. The pulse width pulse... 

A thorough investigation of the dynamics of finite-mass satellites with a deployable elastic arm is presented. This work is focused on the interaction between spacecraft rigid body motion and its flexible arm dynamics during the deployment process. The classical Newton–Euler formulation and the Lagrangian approach are applied to the study of the dynamics of spacecraft and its deploying arm. Utilizing a non-Newtonian floating frame to define the arm elastic deformation field, the interactions between the spacecraft and its moving arm have been simulated. Complete equations of motion show that the spacecraft motion induces dynamical stiffness on the arm; in addition, axial and lateral motions... 

This paper investigates the finite-Time landing of a spacecraft on a celestial target subjected to disturbances and air drag forces. Based on nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control, a novel guidance law is designed to accomplish the landing goal within a specified finite time while the upper bound of disturbances is assumed to be known. Finally, a numerical example of the spacecraft landing problem is simulated by applying the proposed scheme. The obtained results illustrate that the designed guidance law can achieve the landing goal in the specified finite time  

A thorough investigation of the dynamics of finite-mass satellites with a deployable elastic arm is presented. This work is focused on the interaction between spacecraft rigid body motion and its flexible arm dynamics during the deployment process. The classical Newton–Euler formulation and the Lagrangian approach are applied to the study of the dynamics of spacecraft and its deploying arm. Utilizing a non-Newtonian floating frame to define the arm elastic deformation field, the interactions between the spacecraft and its moving arm have been simulated. Complete equations of motion show that the spacecraft motion induces dynamical stiffness on the arm; in addition, axial and lateral motions... 

This paper presents a method to control a manipulator system grasping a rigid-body payload so that the motion of the combined system as a consequence of external applied forces is the same as any other free-floating rigid-body (with different inertial properties). This allows 0-g emulation of a scaled spacecraft prototype under the test in a 1-g laboratory environment. The controller consisting of motion feedback and force/moment feedback adjusts the motion of the test spacecraft so as to match that of the flight spacecraft, even if the latter has flexible appendages (such as solar panels) and the former is rigid. The stability of the overall system is analytically investigated, and the... 

In this study, the distributed six degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) coordinated control of spacecraft formation flying in low earth orbit (LEO) has been investigated. For this purpose, an accurate coupled translational and attitude relative dynamics model of the spacecraft with respect to the reference orbit (virtual leader) is presented by considering the most effective perturbation acceleration forces on LEO satellites, i.e. the second zonal harmonic and the atmospheric drag. Subsequently, the 6-DOF coordinated control of spacecraft in formation is studied. During the mission, the spacecraft communicate with each other through a switching network topology in which the weights of its graph... 

A review of worldwide activities in liquid-fed pulsed plasma thruster (LPPT) is discussed. Pulsed plasma thruster are extensively recognized as one of the most promising electric space propulsion systems to perform propulsive tasks on micro- and nanosatellites, including cubesats, because they offer many advantages compared with other electric space propulsion systems. The low plasma exhaust velocity measured by a Langmuir probe showed that thrust is mainly produced by 0.3 μg mass ionized by the first trigger and a much greater quantity of propellant introduced by the main discharge remained neutral at low speed. Various propellant feeding and discharge initiation methods have been applied... 

In this study, control strategies based on time-varying LQR, Lyapunov-Floquet transformation (LFT), backstepping, feedback linearization, and constant gain feedback control are implemented for the linearized time periodic equations of spacecraft relative motion when the reference orbit is elliptic. Also, natural and nonnatural leader-follower two-spacecraft formations are studied. The stability of the closed-loop response, the control effort required, and the settling time are investigated and compared for all control strategies. Furthermore, using constant gain feedback, the estimated region of attraction of the closed-loop system is obtained analytically  

In this study the gravitational perturbations of the Sun and other planets are modeled on the dynamics near the Earth-Moon Lagrange points and optimal continuous and discrete station-keeping maneuvers are found to maintain spacecraft about these points. The most critical perturbation effect near the L1 and L2 Lagrange points of the Earth-Moon is the ellipticity of the Moon's orbit and the Sun's gravity, respectively. These perturbations deviate the spacecraft from its nominal orbit and have been modeled through a restricted five-body problem (R5BP) formulation compatible with circular restricted three-body problem (CR3BP). The continuous control or impulsive maneuvers can compensate the... 

Deployment inertial effects of a spacecraft appendage on its flexible dynamics are investigated. The Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the actual deployment profile, in which appendage axial motion accelerates from static state and then decelerates to end at zero velocity and acceleration, are employed. The study is concentrated on the arm dynamic stiffness introduced by inertial effects of the arm deployment, and the resultant effects on the arm flexible motions. Lagrange's equations and some appropriate shape functions in the series approximation method are employed to study the arm lateral elastic displacements. Finally a system of ordinary differential equations with time varying... 

Reference trajectory management is a method to modify reference trajectories for the faulty system. The modified reference trajectories define new maneuvers for the system to retain its pre-fault dynamic performance. Controller reconfiguration is another method to handle faults in the system, for instance by adjusting the controller parameters (coefficients). Both of these two methods have been considered in the literature and are proven to be capable of handling various faults. However, the comparison of these two methods has not been considered sufficiently. In this paper, a controller reconfiguration mechanism and a reference trajectory management are proposed for the spacecraft attitude... 

This research is dedicated to show the possibility of using solar radiation pressure by solar sails for interplanetary flights. In this paper, in addition to the Introduction of solar sailing and physics of solar radiation pressure, the solar sail orbital dynamics for optimal trajectory of an ideal solar sail spacecraft has been studied. It considers the problem of optimal controlling the sail angle so as to execute a minimum-time coplanar orbit transfer from the circular initial orbit to the circular target orbit. The direct collocation optimal control technique is used to transform the state equations to a set of nonlinear algebraic constraint equations. The results of state and control...