Rate regulation of a suborbital reentry payload by moving-mass actuators

Abstract

In order to save cost and time, sounding rockets are effectively used to develop space technologies. In a biological payload that is under the study on this investigation, reentry rate regulation is one of the critical issues to be solved. Because of non-linear time-varying dynamics of these payloads and presence of high aerodynamic disturbances during reentry, choosing an appropriate stability and control mechanism can be an engineering challenge. Having a lot of benefits, nowadays, moving-mass actuation systems are used in a variety of aerospace applications. As an innovative approach, a moving-mass system is designed and analysed to regulate the payload body rates during reentry phase. Simulation results indicate significant performance of suggested application for moving-mass control systems.