New Paradigm for Spacecraft Control and Design Technologies

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The proposed research "New Paradigm for Spacecraft Control and Design" will focus on developing next generation of low cost, autonomous and intelligent spacecraft. The research will be conducted under four main areas: 1) Harnessing Environmental Forces for Spacecraft Control, 2) Robust Control or Fault Tolerant Control Methodologies for Spacecraft, 3) Novel Actuators for Spacecraft Control, and 4) Spacecraft Design, Miniaturization and Hardware Innovation. The first objective involves harnessing environmental forces efficiently for spacecraft control (simple called "Propellant-less Spacecraft Control") while the second objective focuses on fault diagnosis, prognosis and control to develop intelligent controllers for a swarm of spacecraft. In addition, it also focuses on big data analytics for spacecraft health management. On the other hand, the third objective involves the development of novel actuators for spacecraft control including fluid rings, tethers and MEMS (piezoelectric). The fourth objective involves spacecraft design with a focus on ultra small satellites, such as attosatellites (1 - 10g). Finally, the developed algorithms will be integrated into spacecraft hardware and tested on high-fidelity system models and spacecraft formation platforms available in Dr. Kumar's Space Systems Dynamics and Control laboratory. The proposed research will lead to the development of intelligent high performance spacecraft for future space missions as well as training of a large number of HQPs (6 PhD students, 9 MASc students, and 4 Undergraduate research assistants) in the most demanding areas of system modelling and simulation, big data analytics, sensors, actuators, software development, and hardware design.