Design of fault tolerant and intelligent attitude control subsystem for micro and nano-satellites

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Recently microsatellites (10 kg~100 kg) and nanosatellites (1 kg~10 kg) have experienced rapid growth due to development on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and nano technologies. However, their scientific and commercial applications involve several challenging problems including significant bias instability errors of MEMS sensors, low attitude performance provided by magnetic torquers, nanowheels or control moment gyros (CMGs) still under developmental stage, and unavailability of fault tolerant attitude control for a single satellite and multiple satellites during formation flying. The proposed research will examine these challenging problems during three years of the project with a focus of three objectives: 1) design of nanowheels and CMGs (year 1), 2) controller design (year 2), and 3) fault tolerant and intelligent attitude control (year 3). The first objective will involve mathematical modeling and optimal design for mass, power, and available torque, and computer simulation and laboratory testing. The second objective will deals with controller design for a single satellite, and multiple satellites during formation maintenance and reconfiguration. The final objective will involve the development fault tolerant and intelligent attitude control for satellites including underactuated satellites in the presence of environmental perturbations (gravity gradient, aerodynamic forces, Earth magnetic forces, solar radiation pressure, etc.). Finally, it is planned that the attitude control system developed will be applied to JC2Sat (Japan Canada Joint Collaboration Satellites), a joint project between Canadian Space Agency and Japanese Space Agency, and will be flight tested on satellites designed by SpaceQuest Canada Inc.