Research on Sun-Oriented Spin-Stabilized Attitude Control of Micro/Nano Satellite Using Only Magnetic Control

Abstract

Sun-oriented attitude control is one of the most important attitude control modes for most micro/nano satellites, which directly affects the on-orbit energy acquisition. Therefore, it is of great importance to use the simplest sensors and actuators and the most reliable algorithm to achieve sun-oriented attitude control. A sun-oriented spin-stabilized attitude control method for micro/nano satellites using only magnetic control is proposed in this paper, in which the control progress is divided into four phases: initial damping phase, sun-aligned phase, spin-up phase, and spin-stabilized phase. The influence of the shadow zone of the orbit, offset installation of sun sensor and solar panel, limitation of the field of view of the sun sensor, and environmental disturbance torques are all considered in the proposed method. The control performance is evaluated by numerical simulations, and the simulation results show that the proposed method is applicable to the satellite equipped with a sun sensor and a 3-axis magnetometer as attitude sensors and three magnetic torquers installed orthogonally as attitude actuators. The proposed method is applicable to most Earth-orbit satellites for which the geomagnetic field can provide sufficient attitude control torque.