This project covers the attitude and orbit control systems (AOCS) research program being carried out as part of the MOD applied research program for AD CIS(OR)1. The project program is to evaluate the candidate sensor technologies and control algorithms, such as Kalman filters, which may be applied to future UK military ComSats. The specific needs of military satellites for robust and threat-resistant control are not offered by current civil technologies which normally use vulnerable earth sensors or RF pointing which is vulnerable to deception. The program is also to investigate ways of reducing control system complexity and improvements in attitude control precision by enabling structural modes to be controlled. The project examines the most promising attitude control system technologies required to support such future communications payloads. User requirements indicate a need for improved threat resistance and for narrower spot beams, and the program supports this perceived need by the use of improved sensors and control algorithms. Improved pointing on civil ComSats is normally by means of ground RF measurements to form a closed loop control system with the spacecraft. For threat reasons this method is unsuitable for military ComSats, and on-board sensors are therefore used. The use of Silicon array star or earth sensors are the most promising, and the sensor program is to concentrate on these. Limited development and available civil sensors will be considered. Experimental work is based on demonstrating and evaluating real hardware in-the-loop on an existing air bearing experimental rig. This offers the closest simulation of real flight performance that can be obtained. The program will develop the Filtered Attitude Determination System (FADS)rig to be fully representative of a MilSatCom satellite, threat-resistant AOCS solution, employing Silicon array star and earth sensors. Both the BAe Mosaic Earth Sensor (MES) nad Marconi Versatile Star Sensor (VSS) technologies show considerable potential as attitude sensors. The VSS and MES capabilities will be evalutated on the FADS rig.


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    Title :

    FADS: A Demonstrator for Milcomsat AOCS


    Contributors:
    M. Huddleston (author) / P. Cope (author)

    Publication date :

    1995


    Size :

    7 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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