Heteroclinic bifurcations in completely liquid-filled spacecraft with flexible appendage

In this paper, the chaotic dynamics in an attitude transition maneuver of a rigid body with a completely liquid-filled cavity in going from minor axis to major axis spin under the influence of viscous damping and a small flexible appendage constrained to undergo only torsional vibration is investigated. The focus in this paper is on the way in which the dynamics of the liquid and flexible appendage vibration are coupled. The equations of motion are derived and then transformed into a form suitable for the application of Melnikov's method. Melnikov's integral is used to predict the transversal intersections of the stable and unstable manifolds for the perturbed system. An analytical criterion for chaotic motion is derived in terms of the system parameters. This criterion is evaluated for its significance to the design of spacecraft. The dependence of the onset of chaos on quantities such as body shape and magnitude of damping values, fuel fraction and frequency of flexible appendage vibration are investigated.     

Attitude maneuver of liquid-filled spacecraft with a flexible appendage by momentum wheel

Attitude maneuver of liquid-filled spacecraft with an appendage as a cantilever beam by momentum wheel is studied.The dynamic equations are derived by conservation of angular momentum and force equilibrium principle.A feedback control strategy of the momentum wheel is applied for the attitude maneuver.The residual nutation of the spacecraft in maneuver process changes with some chosen parameters,such as steady state time,locations of the liquid container and the appendage,and appendage parameters.The results indicate that locations in the second and fourth quadrants of the body-fixed coordinate system and the second quadrant of the wall of the main body are better choices for placing the liquid containers and the appendage than other locations if they can be placed randomly.Higher density and thicker cross section are better for lowering the residual nutation if they can be changed.Light appendage can be modeled as a rigid body,which results in a larger residual nutation than a flexible model though.The residual nutation decreases with increasing absolute value of the initial sloshing angular height.     

Analytical method for the attitude stability of partially liquid filled spacecraft with flexible appendage

In this paper, the attitude stability of liquid-filled spacecraft with flexible appendage is investigated. The motion of liquid sloshing is modeled as the spherical pen-dulum, and the flexible appendage is approached by a linear shearing beam. Nonlinear dynamic equations of the coupled system are derived from the Hamiltonian. The stability of the coupled system was analyzed by using the energy-Casimir method, and the nonlinear stability theorem of the coupled spacecraft system was also obtained. Through numerical computation, the correctness of the proposed theorem is verified and the boundary curves of the stable region are presented. The increase of the angular velocity and flexible attachment length will weaken the attitude stability, and the change of the filled ratio of liquid fuel tank has a different influence on the stability of the coupled spacecraft, depend-ing on the different conditions. The attitude stability analysis of the coupled spacecraft system in this context is useful for selecting appropriate parameters in the complex spacecraft design.     

Chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft

IntroductionAttitudedynamicsofspacecraftisascientificresearchsubjectwithgreatsignificance[1,2 ].Aschaosiswidelyanddeeplyinvestigated ,muchattentionhasbeenpaidonchaoticattitudemotionofspacecraft.Itnotonlyprovidesadefiniteengineeringbackgroundforexploringchaos,butalsooffersanewviewpointfordesigningspacecraft.Ithasbeenshownthatthereexistschaoticattitudemotioninsomemodelsofspacecraft,suchasspinningsatellitesinacircularorbit,gyrostatsatellitesinthegravitationalfield ,andtetheredsatellites[3 ,4].Ho…     

Sliding mode maneuvering control and active vibration damping of three-axis stabilized flexible spacecraft with actuator dynamics

This paper presents a dual-stage control system design method for the three-axis-rotational maneuver control and vibration stabilization of a spacecraft with flexible appendages embedded with piezoceramics as sensor and actuator. In this design approach, the attitude control system and vibration suppression were designed separately using a lower order model. Based on the sliding mode control (SMC) theory, a discontinuous attitude control law in the form of the input voltage of the reaction wheel is derived to control the orientation of the spacecraft actuated by the reaction wheel, in which the reaction wheel dynamics is also considered from the real applications point of view. The asymptotic stability is shown using Lyapunov analysis. Furthermore, an adaptive version of the proposed attitude control law is also designed for adapting the unknown upper bounds of the lumped disturbance so that the limitation of knowing the bound of the disturbance in advance is released. In addition, the concept of varying the width of boundary layer instead of a fixed one is also employed to eliminate the chattering and improve the pointing precision as well. For actively suppressing the induced vibration, modal velocity feedback and strain rate feedback control methods are presented and compared by using piezoelectric materials as additional sensors and actuators bonded on the surface of the flexible appendages. Numerical simulations are performed to show that rotational maneuver and vibration suppression are accomplished in spite of the presence of disturbance torque and parameter uncertainty.     

Chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft in an elliptic orbit and its control

This paper deals with the chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft with internal damping in an elliptic orbit. The dynamical model of the spacecraft is established. The Melnikov analysis is carried out to prove the existence of a complicated nonwandering Cantor set. The dynamical behaviors are numerically investigated by means of time history, Poincaré map, Lyapunov exponents and power spectrum. Numerical simulations demonstrate the chaotic motion of the system. The input-output feedback linearization method and its modified version are applied, respectively, to control the chaotic attitude motions to the given fixed point or periodic motion. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of Chine (10082003)     

Combined control of fast attitude maneuver and stabilization for large complex spacecraft

In remote sensing or laser communication space missions, spacecraft need fast maneuver and fast stabilization in order to accomplish agile imaging and attitude tracking tasks. However, fast attitude maneuvers can easily cause elastic deformations and vibrations in flexible appendages of the spacecraft. This paper focuses on this problem and deals with the combined control of fast attitude maneuver and sta- bilization for large complex spacecraft. The mathematical model of complex spacecraft with flexible appendages and momentum bias actuators on board is presented. Based on the plant model and combined with the feedback controller, modal parameters of the closed-loop system are calculated, and a multiple mode input shaper utilizing the modal information is designed to suppress vibrations. Aiming at reducing vibrations excited by attitude maneuver, a quintic polynomial form rotation path planning is proposed with constraints on the actuators and the angular velocity taken into account. Attitude maneuver simulation results of the control systems with input shaper or path planning in loop are sepa- rately analyzed, and based on the analysis, a combined control strategy is presented with both path planning and input shaper in loop. Simulation results show that the combined control strategy satisfies the complex spacecraft＇s require- ment of fast maneuver and stabilization with the actuators＇ torque limitation satisfied at the same time.     

Analytical solution of attitude motion for spacecraft with a slewing appendage

This paper investigates pitch motion and in orbital plane elastic vibration of a spacecraft with a flexible beam type appendage undergoing prescribed slew maneuver. The governing equations are transformed into a standard quasi-linear form, and then solved by Butenin's variation of parameters approach. Validity of the analytical solutions is assessed over a range of system parameters and initial conditions by comparing them with the results of numerical integration. The results show that they are very good approximations and provide extensive insight into the dynamical response of the system.     

Passivity-based control for a flexible spacecraft in the presence of disturbances

The attitude regulation control problem for flexible spacecraft is investigated in this paper. Two extended PD+variable structure controllers are proposed using passivity-based control technique instead of sliding mode control approach. The first controller is a basic one, while the second one is an extension of the first one which relaxes the bound requirement for the external disturbances. In the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances, both controllers presented in this research can make the flexible spacecraft UGAS (uniformly globally asymptotically stable). By virtue of related analysis tools, stability of the proposed controllers is proven theoretically. Numerical simulations are also included to demonstrate the performance of the developed controllers.     

Robust attitude control for rapid multi-target tracking in spacecraft formation flying

A robust attitude tracking control scheme for spacecraft formation flying is presented. The leader spacecraft with a rapid mobile antenna and a camera is modeled. While the camera is tracking the ground target, the antenna is tracking the follower spacecraft. By an angular velocity constraint and an angular constraint, two methods are proposed to compute the reference attitude profiles of the camera and antenna, respectively. To simplify the control design problem, this paper first derives the desired inverse system （DIS）, which can convert the attitude tracking problem of 3D space into the regulator problem. Based on DIS and sliding mode control （SMC）, a robust attitude tracking controller is developed in the presence of mass parameter uncertainties and external disturbance. By Lyapunov stability theory, the closed loop system stability can be achieved. The numerical simulations show that the proposed robust control scheme exhibits significant advantages for the multi-target attitude tracking of a two-spacecraft formation.     

Orbit and attitude control of spacecraft formation flying

Formation flying is a novel concept of distributing the functionality of large spacecraft among several smaller, less expensive, cooperative satellites. Some applications require that a controllable satellite keeps relative position and attitude to observe a specific surface of another satellite among the cluster. Specially, the target space vehicle is malfunctioning. The present paper focuses on the problem that how to control a chaser satellite to fly around an out-of-work target satellite closely in earth orbit and to track a specific surface. Relative attitude and first approximate relative orbital dynamics equations are presented. Control strategy is derived based on feedback linearization and Lyapunov theory of stability. Further, considering the uncertainty of inertia, an adaptive control method is developed to obtain the correct inertial ratio. The numerical simulation is given to verify the validity of proposed control scheme.     

Chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft and its control

This paper deals with chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft with internal damping in a circular orbit near the equatorial plane of the earth. The dynamical model of the problem is established. The Melnikov analysis is carried out to prove the existence of a complicated non-wandering Cantor set. The dynamical behaviors are numerically investigated by means of time history. Poincare map, power spectrum and Lyapunov exponents. Numerical simulations indicate that the onset of chaos is characterized by the intermittency as the increase of the torque of the magnetic forces and decrease of the damping. The input-output feedback linearization method is applied to control chaotic attitude motions to the given fixed point and periodic motion.     

Chaotic pitch motion of an asymmetric non-rigid spacecraft with viscous drag in circular orbit

We study the pitch motion dynamics of an asymmetric spacecraft in circular orbit under the influence of a gravity gradient torque. The spacecraft is perturbed by a small aerodynamic drag torque proportional to the angular velocity of the body about its mass center. We also suppose that one of the moments of inertia of the spacecraft is a periodic function of time. Under both perturbations, we show that the system exhibits a transient chaotic behavior by means of the Melnikov method. This method gives us an analytical criterion for heteroclinic chaos in terms of the system parameters which is numerically contrasted. We also show that some periodic orbits survive for perturbation small enough.     

Underactuated spacecraft angular velocity stabilization and three-axis attitude stabilization using two single gimbal control moment gyros

Angular velocity stabilization control and attitude stabilization control for an underactuated spacecraft using only two single gimbal control moment gyros （SGCMGs） as actuators is investigated. First of all, the dynamic model of the underactuated spacecraft is established and the singularity of different configurations with the two SGCMGs is analyzed. Under the assumption that the gimbal axes of the two SGCMGs are installed in any direction, and that the total system angular momentum is not zero, a state feedback control law via Lyapunov method is designed to globally asymptotically stabilize the angular velocity of spacecraft. Under the assumption that the gimbal axes of the two SGCMGs are coaxially installed along anyone of the three principal axes of spacecraft inertia, and that the total system angular momentum is zero, a discontinuous state feedback control law is designed to stabilize three-axis attitude of spacecraft with respect to the inertial frame. Furthermore, the singularity escape of SGCMGs for the above two control problems is also studied. Simulation results demonstrate the validity of the control laws.     

Analytical solutions for dynamics of dual-spin spacecraft and gyrostat-satellites under magnetic attitude control in omega-regimes

The attitude dynamics of a dual-spin spacecraft (a gyrostat with one rotor) with magnetic actuators attitude control is considered in the constant external magnetic field at the presence of the spacecraft’s own magnetic dipole moment, which is created proportionally to the angular velocity components (this motion regime can be called as “the omega-regime” or “the omega-maneuver”). The research of the dual-spin spacecraft angular motion under the action of the magnetic restoring torque is fulfilled in the generalized formulation close to the classical mechanics’ task of the heavy body/gyrostat motion in the Lagrange top. Analytical exact solutions of differential equations of the motion are obtained for all parameters in terms of elliptic integrals and the Jacobi functions. New obtained analytical solutions can be classified as results developing the classical fundamental problem of the rigid body and gyrostat motion around the fixed point. The technical application of the omega-regime to the angular reorientation of the spacecraft longitudinal axis along the angular momentum vector is considered.     

Singularly perturbed feedback linearization with linear attitude deviation dynamics realization

A new approach for feedback linearization of attitude dynamics for rigid gas jet-actuated spacecraft control is introduced. The approach is aimed at providing global feedback linearization of the spacecraft dynamics while realizing a prescribed linear attitude deviation dynamics. The methodology is based on nonuniqueness representation of underdetermined linear algebraic equations solution via nullspace parametrization using generalized inversion. The procedure is to prespecify a stable second-order linear time-invariant differential equation in a norm measure of the spacecraft attitude variables deviations from their desired values. The evaluation of this equation along the trajectories defined by the spacecraft equations of motion yields a linear relation in the control variables. These control variables can be solved by utilizing the Moore–Penrose generalized inverse of the involved controls coefficient row vector. The resulting control law consists of auxiliary and particular parts, residing in the nullspace of the controls coefficient and the range space of its generalized inverse, respectively. The free null-control vector in the auxiliary part is projected onto the controls coefficient nullspace by a nullprojection matrix, and is designed to yield exponentially stable spacecraft internal dynamics, and singularly perturbed feedback linearization of the spacecraft attitude dynamics. The feedback control design utilizes the concept of damped generalized inverse to limit the growth of the Moore–Penrose generalized inverse, in addition to the concepts of singularly perturbed controls coefficient nullprojection and damped controls coefficient nullprojection to disencumber the nullprojection matrix from its rank deficiency, and to enhance the closed loop control system performance. The methodology yields desired linear attitude deviation dynamics realization with globally uniformly ultimately bounded trajectory tracking errors, and reveals a tradeoff between trajectory tracking accuracy and damped generalized inverse stability. The paper bridges a gap between the nonlinear control problem applied to spacecraft dynamics and some of the basic generalized inversion-related analytical dynamics principles.     

A time integral formulation and algorithm for structural dynamics with nonlinear stiffness

A newly-developed numerical algorithm, which is called the new Generalized-α (G-α) method, is presented for solving structural dynamics problems with nonlinear stiffness. The traditional G-α method has undesired overshoot properties as for a class of α-method. In the present work, seven independent parameters are introduced into the single-step three-stage algorithmic formulations and the nonlinear internal force at every time interval is approximated by means of the generalized trapezoidal rule, and then the algorithm is implemented based on the finite difference theory. An analysis on the stability, accuracy, energy and overshoot properties of the proposed scheme is performed in the nonlinear regime. The values or the ranges of values of the seven independent parameters are determined in the analysis process. The computational results obtained by the new algorithm show that the displacement accuracy is of order two, and the acceleration can also be improved to a second order accuracy by a suitable choice of parameters. Obviously, the present algorithm is zero-stable, and the energy conservation or energy decay can be realized in the high-frequency range, which can be regarded as stable in an energy sense. The algorithmic overshoot can be completely avoided by using the new algorithm without any constraints with respect to the damping force and initial conditions.The English text was polished by Keren Wang.     

Uncertainty quantification for dynamics of geometrically nonlinear structures coupled with internal acoustic fluids in presence of sloshing and capillarity

In this paper, we propose an uncertainty quantification analysis, which is the continuation of a recent work performed in a deterministic framework. The fluid–structure system under consideration is the one experimentally studied in the sixties by Abramson, Kana, and Lindholm from the Southwest Research Institute under NASA contract. This coupled system is constituted of a linear acoustic liquid contained in an elastic tank that undergoes finite dynamical displacements, inducing geometrical nonlinear effects in the structure. The liquid has a free surface on which sloshing and capillarity effects are taken into account. The problem is expressed in terms of the acoustic pressure field in the fluid, of the displacement field of the elastic structure, and of the normal elevation field of the free surface. The nonlinear reduced-order model constructed in the recent work evoked above is reused for implementing the nonparametric probabilistic approach of uncertainties. The objective of this paper is to present a sensitivity analysis of this coupled fluid–structure system with respect to uncertainties and to use a classical statistical inverse problem for carrying out the experimental identification of the hyperparameter of the stochastic model. The analysis show a significant sensitivity of the displacement of the structure, of the acoustic pressure in the liquid, and of the free-surface elevation to uncertainties in both linear and geometrically nonlinear simulations.     

Conserving and decaying energy for finite-strain three-dimensional solids with rotational degrees of freedom in nonlinear dynamics

In this work, we design a time-stepping scheme, which can ensure either conservation of energy or dissipation of energy of high (unresolved) modes for nonlinear dynamic analysis. The latter is needed to improve the performance in stress computation and long-term numerical stability. Finite element implementation details are given for finite-strain three-dimensional solid model with independent rotational degrees of freedom. The addition of a rotation field requires a particular choice of large strain measures, allowing one to separate large rotation and large displacement. Several numerical simulations illustrate a very satisfying performance of the proposed time-stepping scheme.