SPACECRAFT ATTITUDE CONTROL USING MAGNETIC ACTUATORS

This report presents a study on the problem of spacecraft attitude control using magnetic actuators. Several existing approaches are reviewed and one control strategy is implemented and simulated. A time-varying feedback control law achieving inertial pointing for magnetically actuated spacecraft is implemented. The report explains the modeling of the spacecraft rigid body dynamics, kinematics and attitude control in detail. Besides the fact that control laws have been established for stabilization around local equilibrium, this report presents the results of a control law that yields a generic, global solution for attitude stabilization of a magnetically actuated spacecraft. The report also involves the use MATLAB as a tool for both modeling and simulation of the spacecraft and controller. In conclusion, the simulation outlines the performance of the controller in independently stabilizing the spacecraft in three mutually perpendicular directions.