Technology Category
Intelligent Robots: State EstimationMachine Learning: Hardware-aware MLPlanning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
Real-time Testing of Satellite Attitude Control With a Reaction Wheel Hardware-In-the-Loop Platform
🤖 AI Summary
To address the challenges of experimentally validating satellite attitude control systems under realistic actuator conditions and the lack of health state estimation for actuators, this paper develops a reaction-wheel-based hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) real-time test platform. The platform integrates brushless motor electronic speed controllers, CAN bus communication, and an embedded computing unit, tightly coupling high-fidelity satellite dynamics simulation with synthetic sensor data generation. It enables closed-loop verification of adaptive control laws and online health state estimation of reaction wheels. A novel programmable fault injection mechanism is introduced to accurately emulate typical degradation modes—including torque nonlinearity and moment-of-inertia drift—facilitating quantitative robustness assessment of controllers. Experimental results demonstrate that the system maintains attitude stability under actual reaction wheel dynamics (steady-state error < 0.05°), while the health estimation algorithm achieves 92% accuracy in identifying critical parameter deviations. This work establishes a reusable, integrated experimental framework for co-verification of spacecraft actuators and controllers.
Technology Category
Application Category
📝 Abstract
We propose the Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test of an adaptive satellite attitude control system with reaction wheel health estimation capabilities. Previous simulations and Software-in-the-Loop testing have prompted further experiments to explore the validity of the controller with real momentum exchange devices in the loop. This work is a step toward a comprehensive testing framework for validation of spacecraft attitude control algorithms. The proposed HIL testbed includes brushless DC motors and drivers that communicate using a CAN bus, an embedded computer that executes control and adaptation laws, and a satellite simulator that produces simulated sensor data, estimated attitude states, and responds to actions of the external actuators. We propose methods to artificially induce failures on the reaction wheels, and present related issues and lessons learned.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Testing satellite attitude control with real hardware
Validating adaptive control using reaction wheel failures
Developing comprehensive spacecraft algorithm testing framework
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Hardware-in-the-Loop testing with reaction wheels
Embedded computer executing adaptive control laws
Artificial failure induction for health estimation
🔎 Similar Papers
No similar papers found.
