| Spacecraft attitude control, using only magnetic coils, suffers from being unable to apply a torque about the axis defined by the magnetic field of the earth. This lack of controllability results in marginal stability, slow slew maneuvering and convergence to equilibrium positions. Currently available control schemes typically require one or more orbits to finish a large angle attitude maneuver, which severely restricts the application of magnetic control in projects requiring fast attitude maneuvers.; In this dissertation, the open-loop time-optimal magnetic control is first presented to show the potential performance increase of the magnetic attitude control method. Nonlinear time-varying models with constrained inputs are considered instead of the linearized model generally used. The results show that time-optimal magnetic attitude control can be considerably faster, than the current available control schemes.; The inherent weakness of the open-loop method is its lack of robustness; specifically, its response is sensitive to small changes in the system. Two methods, model predictive control and continuous optimization approach, are presented as closed-loop control strategies to increase the robustness of the time-optimal approach. Simulation results show that these two feedback control schemes effectively improve the robustness of the control system.; Finally, magnetic attitude regulation after the time-optimal magnetic control is discussed.; The main contribution of this work shows that magnetic attitude control is not necessarily slow, as commonly believed, as long as an appropriate control algorithm is applied. The different time-optimal controllers presented show considerable convergence time reduction for large angle attitude maneuvers; which enables magnetic attitude control to be applied to more time-critical applications. |
