The present invention relates to an attitude control unit, which is designed to be: installed on a platform to control the attitude of the latter; and coupled to a Control Moment Gyroscope assembly, that is installed on board said platform and comprises four or more Control Moment Gyroscopes; said attitude control unit being configured to: select, on the basis of a reference attitude trajectory of the platform, three Control Moment Gyroscopes to be simultaneously operated while keeping the unselected Control Moment Gyroscope(s) stationary; compute, on the basis of the reference attitude trajectory and of a current attitude of the platform, an overall angular momentum to be provided by the Control Moment Gyroscope assembly; compute, on the basis of the overall angular momentum to be provided by the Control Moment Gyroscope assembly and of an angular momentum of the unselected Control Moment Gyroscope(s), a triplet-related angular momentum to be provided by the three selected Control Moment Gyroscopes; and simultaneously operate the three selected Control Moment Gyroscopes so as to cause these latter to provide said triplet-related angular momentum computed, while keeping the unselected Control Moment Gyroscope (s) stationary.
ATTITUDE CONTROL FOR AGILE SATELLITE APPLICATIONS
2018-02-22
Patent
Electronic Resource
English