Micro-spacecraft swarm navigation and control

微型航天器集群导航与控制

• 批准号: 2280627
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2280627
• 关键词: Micro; spacecraft; swarm; navigation; control

Building on our prior work on modelling the dynamics and control of swarms of free-flying micro-spacecraft we are currently developing a 3x3 cm PCB-satellite with a microcontroller, MEMS inertial measurement unit and magnetorquers. Recent work has also investigated closed-loop attitude control of our PCB-satellite, including laboratory testing in a small Helmholtz cage.While the development of a single PCB-satellite will explore the level of functionality that can be embedded in a single device, a new challenge for this project will be the development of multiple devices to form a coherent swarm. Swarms of such devices could enable massively parallel sensing of the space environment, for example to detect space weather events. Aims and objectives:Key research questions include:How can a swarm of PCB-satellites determine and control their relative position, and what sensors, actuators and inter-satellite communication links are required?Can emergent, self-organising behaviours be engineered into such a swarm through the integration of low-level behaviour-based control in each swarm member?Can machine intelligence be used to fuse sensed data from the swarm to deliver entirely new services and satellite applications with massively parallel distributed sensing?Novelty of the research methodology:The project will combine modelling, simulation and laboratory-scale development to investigate these research questions, while also exploring future applications of micro-spacecraft swarms.Alignment to Research Council's strategies and research areas:The project will pursue low TRL, underpinning research on distributed sensors swarms in space. The work has potential impacts across Engineering and Digital Economy.Any companies or collaborators involved:The project will link to the supervisor's Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, which is investigating space technologies at extremes of the length-scale.

基于我们之前对自由飞行的微型航天器群的动力学和控制建模的工作，我们目前正在开发一个3x3厘米的pcb卫星，带有微控制器，MEMS惯性测量单元和磁致量器。最近的工作还研究了pcb卫星的闭环姿态控制，包括在小型亥姆霍兹笼中的实验室测试。虽然单个pcb卫星的开发将探索可嵌入单个设备的功能水平，但该项目面临的新挑战将是开发多个设备以形成一个连贯的群。大量这样的设备可以实现对空间环境的大规模并行感知，例如探测空间天气事件。目的和目标：主要研究问题包括：一群pcb卫星如何确定和控制它们的相对位置，需要什么样的传感器、执行器和卫星间通信链路？通过在每个群体成员中整合基于行为的低层次控制，突现的、自组织的行为能否被设计成这样一个群体？机器智能能否用于融合来自群体的感知数据，以提供全新的服务和具有大规模并行分布式感知的卫星应用？研究方法的新颖性：该项目将结合建模、仿真和实验室规模的发展来调查这些研究问题，同时也探索微型航天器群的未来应用。与研究委员会的战略和研究领域保持一致：该项目将追求低TRL，支持对空间分布式传感器群的研究。这项工作对整个工程和数字经济都有潜在的影响。任何参与的公司或合作者：该项目将与主管的皇家工程学院新兴技术主席联系，该主席正在研究极端长度尺度的空间技术。