Ki-Lyuk Yong

Numerical Study on a Reaction Wheel and Wheel-Disturbance Modeling

Reaction wheel assemblies(RWA) are expected to be one of the largest high frequency disturbance sources to the optical payload of satellites. To ensure the tight pointing-stability budget and high image quality of satellites, a vibration isolation device should be applied to the main disturbances. For developing the isolating system, the disturbances need to be identified and modeled accurately. In the present study, a modeling technique of RWA and its disturbance was described. The micro-vibration disturbances were generated numerically by using an analytical wheel and disturbance model. The parameter estimation scheme of the model was suggested, and the RWA and disturbance modeling technique was verified through the numerical example analysis. The analytical results show that the wheel and disturbance model can be accurately established by using the modeling technique proposed in the present study. The wheel and disturbance model is expected to be useful for development of the RWA isolator system.

Design Criteria and Cluster Configuration Improvement of Single Gimbal Control Moment Gyros for Satellite

Nowadays, CMG(Control Moment Gyros) becomes one of the essential actuators for satellite attitude control. The method to define the key requirements of CMG is suggested to avoid CMG`s singularity problem for the limited envelope of angular momentum of 2H. Furthermore, the analysis and simulation are carried out to provide a necessary guideline when three CMGs are used for spacecraft control purpose. An improved configuration of redundant four CMG cluster, slightly different from the conventional configuration, is proposed not only to avoid the CMG singularity problem, but to improve agility about roll or pitch-axis.

Identification of Input Force for Reaction Wheel of Satellite by Measured Action Forceon Decelerating

A reaction wheel is commonly used, as an important actuator, to control the attitude of a satellite. Operation of the reaction wheel plays a role of an excitation source to loading equipment inside the satellite. As requirements for environmental vibration to manifest the performance of precision equipment are getting more stringent, the research for analysis or reduction of unwanted action force in high frequency range when operating the reaction wheel is necessary. In this paper, the procedure to extract input forces and damping of a rotor system of reaction wheel is suggested. The analysis for measured action forces of reaction wheel is accomplished and important higher harmonics of action forces are determined. The input forces and damping of the rotor system are, then, extracted by curve-fitting and a particular solution for input force.

Micro-vibration Test on a Two-axis Gimbal Antenna System with Stepping Motors

A 2-axis gimbal system is one of main disturbance sources affecting image jitter response of a satellite. The gimbal system comprises azimuth stage and elevation stage, and these pointing mechanism can be rotated by stepping motors about its azimuth and elevation axes simultaneously. Because of the complex and coupled dynamic motion of the gimbal system, its moment of inertia and structural modes can be changed according to the system configuration, and thus the gimbal system generates complicated and non-linear disturbance characteristics. In order to improve the jitter response of a spacecraft, it is an indispensable process to reduce the micro-vibration disturbance level of the antenna system. In the present research, a 2-axis gimbal system was manufactured and then its micro-vibration test was performed in terms of two types of stepping motors(2-phase and 5-phase). The test results show that the disturbance level of the gimbal system can be reduced by replacing the 2-phase stepping motor with the 5-phase one, and the average disturbance attenuation ratio is 56 % in peak level and 48 % in standard deviation level. The experimental results confirm that it is an efficient jitter reduction method to adopt a high-phase stepping motor.

Hybrid estimation of spacecraft attitude dynamics and rate sensor alignment parameters

This paper deals with attitude dynamics estimation and rate sensor calibration of spacecraft at the same time during a designed maneuver. This study has been motivated from that both estimation of the moment of inertia and calibration of gyros for precision attitude control are usually performed by a pre-designed 3-axis maneuver for them, respectively. Spacecraft attitude dynamics to be estimated consist of the attitude quaternion, the body angular rate, and the moment of inertia. The gyro sensor calibration terms include the gyro scale factor, misalignments and the bias vector. The equations of motion of spacecraft are augmented by estimation and calibration parameters for an extended Kalman filter design to estimate states and measurement parameter errors together. Estimation and calibration results are shown in numerical simulations.

Development of 100Nm-class Control Moment Gyroscopes for Industrial Applications

The control moment gyroscope(CMG) which is well known as an effective high-torque-generating device is applicable to space vehicles, airplanes, ships, automobiles, robotics, etc. for attitude stabilization and maneuver. This paper deals with the overall details of 100Nm-class CMG development for various industrial applications, and provides the activities and results associated with the CMG system-level requirement analysis, the motor subsystem design/manufacturing/integration, the construction of ground support equipment, and the performance test and evaluation. The performance test reveals that the CMG generates the torque output more than 120Nm in as-designed operation of spin motor and gimbal motor.

An Experimental Study on Micro-vibration Measurement Methods of a Reaction Wheel

A reaction wheel assembly(RWA) is the largest disturbance source that can induce high frequency micro-vibration on an optical payload of satellites. To ensure a tight pointing-stability budget of satellites, the RWA disturbance effect on spacecraft should be accurately analyzed and evaluated for whole design phases. For this purpose, the micro-vibration disturbance of RWA should be precisely measured. In the present study, two measurement methods on RWA micro-vibration disturbances are compared and investigated. One is a free run-down speed test and the other is a constant speed test. The micro-vibration data measured by the two methods are analyzed in terms of spectrum characteristics, static and dynamic imbalance values, and root sum square(RSS) values. The analysis results show that both methods can measure very similar results in time and frequency domains and that the free run-down speed method is more adequate in respects to wheel friction modeling, noise rejection of imbalance and RSS peak evaluation.

Dynamic Modeling of a Satellite with Solar Array Flexible Modes

The efficient dynamic modeling of a satellite with flexible solar arrays is established by using the component mode synthesis technique. A flexible satellite model can be defined as the assembly of two sub-structures, central body and solar array. The reduced models of each substructure, which are expressed in each local frame, are coupled with respect to the satellite reference frame. The dynamic modeling method is applied to the numerical example of a satellite with a single solar array, and is verified by investigating the transfer function results with considering the solar array rotation.

Error Analysis of Reaction Wheel Speed Detection Methods

Reaction wheel is one of the actuators for spacecraft attitude control, which generates torque by changing an inertial rotor speed inside of the wheel. In order to generate required torque accurately and estimate an accurate angular momentum, wheel speed should be measured as close to the actual speed as possible. In this study, two conventional speed detection methods for high speed motor with digital tacho pulse (Elapsed-time method and Pulse-count method) and their resolutions are analyzed. For satellite attitude maneuvering and control, reaction wheel shall be operated in bi directional and low speed operation is sometimes needed for emergency case. Thus the bias error at low speed with constant acceleration (or deceleration) is also analysed. As a result, the speed detection error of elapsed-time method is largely influenced upon the high-speed clock frequency at high speed and largely effected on the number of tacho pulses used in elapsed time calculation at low speed, respectively.

Simulation Model Development Environment using 3 Dimensional Model-Based Approach

SMDE (Simulation Model Development Environment) as a support tool for simulation models development improves readability, productivity and reliability of simulation models using 3D (Dimensional) Model-Based Approach. To improve reusability and adaptability of the existing models, SMDE offers the function of source code generation depending on a simulator infrastructure. In this paper, the features of SMDE including 3D graphical modeling environment are introduced.