Bounded Gain-Scheduled LQR Satellite Control Using a Tilted Wheel

Generation of control torque for highly agile satellite missions is generally achieved with momentum exchange devices, such as reaction wheels and control moment gyros (CMGs) with high slew maneuverability. However, the generation of a high control torque from the respective actuators requires high power and thus a large mass. The work presented here proposes a novel type of control actuator that generates torques in all three principal axes of a rigid satellite using only a spinning wheel and a simple tilt mechanism. This newly proposed actuator has several distinct advantages including less mass and more simplicity than a conventional CMG and no singularities being experienced during nominal wheel operation. A new high performance bounded (HPB) linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control law has been presented that extends classical LQR by providing faster settling times, gain-scheduling the control input weightings to optimize its performance, and has much quicker computation times than classical LQR. This work derives a fundamental mathematical model of the actuator and demonstrates feasibility by providing three degree of freedom high fidelity simulations for the actuator using both classical LQR and HPB LQR.