Attitude maneuvers avoiding forbidden directions
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In: Astrodynamics Volume 7 / Issue 3 (2023-06-16) , S. ; eissn:2522-0098
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Many space missions require the execution of large-angle attitude slews during which stringent pointing constraints must be satisfied. For example, the pointing direction of a space telescope must be kept away from directions to bright objects, maintaining a prescribed safety margin. In this paper we propose an open-loop attitude control algorithm which determines a rest-to-rest maneuver between prescribed attitudes while ensuring that any of an arbitrary number of body-fixed directions of light-sensitive instruments stays clear of any of an arbitrary number of space-fixed directions. The approach is based on an application of a version of Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle tailor-made for optimal control problems on Lie groups, and the pointing constraints are ensured by a judicious choice of the cost functional. The existence of up to three first integrals of the resulting system equations is established, depending on the number of light-sensitive and forbidden directions. These first integrals can be exploited in the numerical implementation of the attitude control algorithm, as is shown in the case of one light-sensitive and several forbidden directions. The results of the test cases presented confirm the applicability of the proposed algorithm.
@article{doi:10.17170/kobra-202307268484, author ={Ailabouni, David and Meister, Andreas and Spindler, Karlheinz}, title ={Attitude maneuvers avoiding forbidden directions}, keywords ={510 and Lageregelung and Lie-Gruppe and Pontrjagin, Lev S.}, copyright ={http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/}, language ={en}, journal ={Astrodynamics}, year ={2023-06-16} }