Attitude Stabilization and Control

Anton de Ruiter

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Ryerson University, Toronto
Department of Aerospace Engineering 1 Introduction to Space Systems
 Why Attitude Stabilization?
• A key part of a spacecraft mission is to point an instrument
at something
• There are associated pointing requirements
– Communications satellite
• Point antenna to ground
• Antenna beam typically wide, so coarse attitude stabilization is good
enough
– Earth observation and/or surveillance
• Point camera/radar or other imaging device at a target on the ground
• Precise tracking of target may be required, in which case fine attitude
control is required
– Space astronomy
• Point a telescope at star of interest
• Very fine attitude control is required so as not to blur image
• These objectives are met by some form of attitude
stabilization, which may be either passive, or active
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 Passive Attitude Stabilization
• Passive attitude stabilization makes use of the spacecraft
dynamics to put the spacecraft into a naturally stable
equilibrium
– Examples
• Spin stabilization
• Dual-spin stabilization
• Gravity-gradient stabilization
– Advantage
• Configuration is naturally stable, and does not need an active control
system
– Disadvantages
• Achievable pointing accuracy is poor
– Only useful if pointing accuracy requirements are coarse
• Stabilization is limited to natural equilibria
– Cannot track arbitrary attitude profiles

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 Active Attitude Control
• Utilizes an active control system, with sensors, actuators
and a control processor
– Advantages
• Very fine pointing accuracies are possible
• Can track arbitrary attitude profiles
– Useful for observing moving targets
– Disadvantages
• Additional hardware is required
– Extra mass
– Has finite lifetime
• Constitutes a potential point of failure

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 Spin-Stabilization
• One of the oldest forms of attitude stabilization
• Useful if the instrument is to be pointed in an inertially fixed
direction
– Spacecraft is stabilized by spinning it about that direction,
giving it gyroscopic stiffness
– It is only stable if the spin-axis is the major axis of inertia
• This can be a disadvantage since it imposes a constraint on the spacecraft
structural configuration

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 Dual-Spin Stabilization
• Gyroscopic stiffness is provided by a spinning wheel (called
a momentum wheel)
• Spacecraft can still be spun (about the same axis as the
wheel), but the spin axis no longer needs to be the major
axis of inertia (although it should be a principal axis)
– Spacecraft can be completely stationary if desired

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 Gravity-Gradient Stabilization
• Useful for Earth-pointing satellites (looks straight down) in
circular orbits
• Makes use of the natural stability provided by gravity-
gradient
• Equilibrium condition has the principal body z-axis pointing
down, principal y-axis pointing to orbit anti-normal, principal
x-axis pointing in velocity direction
• Stability condition:

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 Active Attitude Control
• Typical attitude control system software consists of two parts
– Software (three parts)
• Navigation – determines attitude (where am I?)
• Guidance – determines desired attitude to achieve control task (where do I want to
be?)
• Control – determines required torques to steer the attitude to the desired one (how do
I get there?)
– Hardware (two parts)
• Sensors – provide measurements from which attitude can be determined
• Actuators – create torques on spacecraft

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 Attitude Control Hardware
• Sensors
– Provide measurements from which attitude and possibly
angular velocity can be determined
• Sun Sensors
• Magnetometers
• Earth Sensors
• Star Trackers
• Rate Sensors
• Actuators
– Provide a means to create a torque on the spacecraft
• Thrusters, magnetic torquers
– Create external torques which change the spacecraft angular
momentum
• Reaction wheels, control moment gyroscopes
– Create internal torques which leave the spacecraft angular
momentum unchanged

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 Sun Sensors
• Two types: analog and digital sun sensors
• Analog sun sensors are solar cells whose current input is
related to the angle between the sun vector and sensor
normal as

• One analog sun sensor reading

provides a cone of possible sun
directions
• Need at least three analog
sun sensor measurements to
resolve the sun direction

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 Sun Sensors
• Digital sun sensors are much more complex than analog sun
sensors
• They provide a full sun vector in sensor coordinates
– may be transformed to spacecraft body coordinates by
knowledge of the sensor orientation within the body

• Sun sensor limitations (both analog and digital)

– Limited fields of view, so multiple sensors may be required to
give full coverage of all possible attitude configurations
– Digital sun-sensors may have limitations on spacecraft angular
velocity, above which they cease to work

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 Three-Axis Magnetometers
• Three-axis magnetometers measure the local magnetic field
vector in sensor coordinates
– may be transformed to spacecraft body coordinates by
knowledge of the sensor orientation within the body
• Relatively inaccurate, but has no field of view limitations
– Useful for initial attitude determination when spacecraft attitude
is arbitrary (after deployment from launch vehicle) before more
accurate measurements become available
• Measurements may be corrupted by the spacecraft’s own
magnetic field
– Some of these effects can be removed by calibration, others
can’t
– Magnetometers sometimes mounted on booms away from the
main spacecraft structure to minimize these effects

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 Earth Sensors
• Earth sensors are used to determine the nadir vector
(direction of the center of the Earth)
• Commonly used in nominally Earth-pointing spacecraft
– Directly provides measurements of roll and pitch angles
(rotations about the velocity direction and orbit anti-normal
respectively)
• Yaw (rotation about the nadir vector) cannot be measured
• Operation principles
– From space, Earth appears as a disk, so its center cannot be
directly measured
• Earth horizon can be detected, and Earth center can be inferred from
knowledge of the horizon
• Horizon is detected using infrared (IR) sensors, detecting IR radiation
emitted from Earth
– IR is used since IR radiation is relatively uniform across the entire
surface (visible light varies greatly depending on night or day)
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 Earth Sensors
• Two types of Earth sensors
– Static Earth sensors
– Scanning Earth sensors
• Static Earth sensors consist of a suite of concentric IR
sensors
– Reading from each sensor is proportional to the fraction of the
Earth disk within its field of view
– Earth horizon is obtained by combining the signals from each
sensor

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 Scanning Earth Sensors
• A scanning Earth sensor has a rotating optical head, which
sweeps out a cone
– An IR sensor detects when the Earth disk is within the instantaneous
field of view
• In particular, acquisition of signal (AOS) when the Earth disk enters the
instantaneous field of view, and loss of signal (LOS) when the Earth disk
leaves the instantaneous field of view are important

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 Scanning Earth Sensors
• The roll angle can be determined by the time between AOS and LOS
– Note that time between
AOS and LOS also depends
on altitude, so altitude must
be known
• This limitation can be
overcome by use of a dual
scanning Earth sensor (scanning
heads on opposite sides)
• The pitch angle can be determined by knowledge of when the Earth’s
surface passes through the scanners field of view, relative to a vertical
reference (set within the scanner)

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 Earth Sensors
• Limitations
– Earth sensors are only useful if the Earth disk is within the
sensor field of view
• Useful only for a limited range of attitudes
– Scanning Earth sensors have limitations on spacecraft angular
velocity, above which they will not function well
• Due to the fact it uses a rotating optical head
– AOS and LOS times would change if spacecraft is rotating
– Not a significant problem if spacecraft is rotating much slower that the
optical head, but a serious problem if the spacecraft angular velocity
is not negligible

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 Star Trackers
• Star Trackers provide the most accurate reference for
attitude determination, but are also the most complex and
therefore least reliable of all attitude sensors
• Modern star trackers use a camera to detect and track
multiple stars
– Stars in camera image are matched to stars in an on-board
catalogue
– Attitude is determined internally by the sensor’s own processor
• Limitations
– Sun and Earth (and possibly the moon) may not lie within the
star tracker field of view
• Limits allowable attitude
– Allowable spacecraft angular velocity is very low

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 Rate Sensors
• Rate sensors provide measurements of the spacecraft
angular velocity in sensor coordinates
– may be transformed to spacecraft body coordinates by
knowledge of the sensor orientation within the body
• Benefits
– Rate sensor measurements are always available, without the
need for an external reference
– Sensor noise is typically very small
• Disadvantage
– Sensor always has a bias (non-zero offset)
• Cannot simply integrate attitude kinematic equations to obtain attitude,
– Other attitude sensors are always needed in conjunction with a rate
sensor

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 Thrusters
• Thrusters eject mass to create a net force
– By offsetting a thruster from the spacecraft center of mass, a
torque is created

– Need at least two thrusters to be able to create both a positive

an negative torque about the same axis
• Need at least 6 thrusters to create a torque about an arbitrary axis

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 Thrusters
• Thrusters typically operate in on/off fashion (only one thrust
level)
– To be able to create an arbitrary torque profile on average,
thrusters are typically pulse-width modulated (pulsed for
different time periods to create the same average effect as a
time varying torque)

– Tc is the commanded
torque
– Tt is the pulsed torque

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 Thrusters
• There is a minimum amount of time a thruster can be fired
– This becomes a problem when very small torques are
commanded
– Thrusters would be continually firing when attitude errors are
small, due to attitude determination errors
• Wastes a lot of fuel
• A dead-zone is implemented such that when the attitude error is below a
certain threshold, the thrusters don’t fire
– The achievable accuracy of attitude control systems utilizing
thrusters is coarse
• Lifetime of a mission utilizing thrusters is limited by available
fuel

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 Magnetic Torquers
• Magnetic torquers are wire coils attached to a spacecraft
– Typically three coils, one for each axis
• By passing a current through each coil, a magnetic dipole
moment is created (m)
• Dipole moment interacts with Earth’s magnetic field (b) to
create a torque on the spacecraft

• The generated torque will always be perpendicular to the

local Earth’s magnetic field
– Spacecraft using only magnetic torquers is instantaneously
underactuated (cannot create an arbitrary torque)
• Earth’s magnetic field is very weak, so torques created by
magnetic torquers is very small (limited control authority)
– Achievable attitude accuracy using magnetic control is coarse
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 Magnetic Torquers
• If magnetic torquers are used in conjunction with a
magnetometer, the magnetic torquer activation must be
scheduled with magnetometer reading so that the magnetic
torquer does not corrupt the magnetometer reading

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 Reaction Wheels
• A reaction wheel is a nominally non-spinning wheel mounted
in the spacecraft
– It is a momentum exchange device (angular momentum is
transferred between the wheel and the spacecraft body)
– By conservation of angular momentum, accelerating the wheel
in one direction causes the spacecraft to accelerate in the
opposite direction
– Three reaction wheels are required for full three-axis attitude
control (one for each axis)
• A fourth wheel is often added for redundancy
• Reaction wheels provide the most fine attitude control
accuracy

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 Reaction Wheels
• External disturbance torques result in a change in angular
momentum of the spacecraft
– When the spacecraft attitude is controlled using reaction
wheels, the angular momentum build-up occurs in the wheels
– A means of dumping this built-up angular momentum is
necessary
• Thrusters and/or magnetic torquers are used for this purpose, since they
create external torques which change the spacecraft angular momentum

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 Control Moment Gyroscopes
• Control moment gyroscopes (CMGs) consist of a wheel
spinning at constant speed, mounted in a gimbal
• By rotating the gimbal, a large gyroscopic reaction torque is
created perpendicular to the gimbal axis
– A CMG acts as a torque amplifier (a small gimbal torque results
in a large gyroscopic reaction torque)
– CMGs are useful when large torques are needed (eg. for
attitude control of the International Space Station)
• CMGs are also momentum exchange devices (do not
change spacecraft angular momentum, and require either
thrusters or magnetic torquers to restore the CMG gimbal
angles back to their original settings

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