Orbit and Attitude Control of Asymmetric Satellites in Polar Near-Circular Orbit

In this paper, the general problem about the orbit and attitude dynamic model is discussed. A feedback linearization control method is introduced for this model. Due to the asymmetric structure, the orbital properties of such satellites are the same as traditional symmetric ones, but the attitude properties are greatly different from the symmetric counterparts. With perturbations accumulate with time, the attitude angles increase periodically with time, but the orbital elements change much slower than the attitude angles. In the attitude dynamic model, chaos could appear. Traditional linear controllers can not compensate enough for asymmetric satellite when the mission is complex, especially in maneuver missions. Thus nonlinear control method is required to solve such problem in large scale. A feedback linearization method, one robust nonlinear control method, is introduced and applied to the asymmetric satellite in this paper. Some simulations are also given and the results show that feedback linearization controller not only stabilizes the system, but also exempt the chaos in the system.