Spacecraft Attitude Control Simulation

[jfelrod1960]

I'm building a spacecraft attitude control simulation and I'm looking for some references to help me build a realistic mathematical model. Could someone please help me? I'm testing an AI library I built and that is requiring a lot of research in itself.

Thanks for your time!
Jeff

 

[pervect]

You'll definitely need to understand the moment of inertia tensor

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mi.html
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/MomentofInertia.html

You can probably assume that your thrusters give a constant torque along some particular axis when they are on, and no torque when they are off.

A simple model would be that the axis that the torque was generated around would be one of the principal axes of the moment of inertia tensor, a more general model would be that the torque was generated along an arbitrary axis.

You may also need to take a look at Euler's equations, to convert the equations of motion from body-centered to a fixed coordinate system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler's_equations

For a textbook reference, try Goldstein's "Classical Mechanics", look up "Euler's equations".

 

[jfelrod1960]

Thanks pervect! :)