Small-Satellite Attitude Control Using Stroke-Limited Vibrating-Mass Actuators With Piecewise Constant Control Signals

This paper considers attitude control of a rigid body (e.g., a small satellite) with internal rotating-mass actuators that, unlike reaction wheels, cannot perform continuous rotations. Instead, the rotational stroke of each actuator is limited to α radians. In addition, each actuator has first-order low-pass dynamics. We present and analyze an attitude-feedback control method, where the control signals (i.e., the angular position commands sent to the actuators) are piecewise constant. The main analytic result shows that this attitude-feedback control method achieves setpoint tracking for a constant attitude command. This control method is demonstrated in numerical simulations of a small satellite in deep space.