scenarioMtbMomentumManagement

Overview

Demonstrates how to use magnetic torque bars to drive the angular momentum of RWs to desired values. The basic spacecraft setup with RWs is similar to that seen in scenarioAttitudeFeedbackRW. A magnetic field is simulated, and a three-axis magnetometer (TAM) sensor device is added. Three orthogonally aligned magnetic torque bars (MTBs) (see MtbEffector) are included to provide a magnetic torque. Finally, the RW angular momentum management module using MTBs, called mtbMomentumManagement, is used to drive the RW spin rates to desired values. The spacecraft is setup to stabilize and point in a fixed inertial direction while this RW momentum control is engaged.

The script is found in the folder xmera/examples and executed by using:

python3 scenarioMtbMomentumManagement.py

The RW momentum dumping strategy is taking from the paper

entitled Three-Axis Attitude Control Using Redundant Reaction Wheels with Continuous Momentum Dumping and authored by Erik Hogan.

Illustration of Simulation Results

show_plots = True

The first plot illustrates that the inertial3D module is able to achieve a stable inertial pointing.

The next plots illustrate the RW states. The motor torque are initially large to stabilize the spacecraft orientation. After this they return to small values that are compensating for the magnetic momentum dumping. The RW spin rates converge to the desired values over time.

The following plots illustrate the sensed magnetic field as well as the TAM commanded dipoles.