Investigation of Active Vibration Suppression of a Flexible Satellite using Magnetic Attitude Control

The problem of attitude control of a flexible satellite using magnetic attitude control is investigated. The work is motivated by JC2Sat - a joint CSA and JAXA mission whose main purpose is a proof of concept of two satellites performing differential drag formation flying. The impact of additional flexible drag panels (of various sizes) on the attitude control is assessed. JC2Sat's attitude control system consists of three perpendicular magnetorquers and one reaction/bias-momentum wheel. Four Linear Quadratic Regulator controllers are compared, ranging in complexity from being time-invariant and assuming a rigid satellite, to being periodic and actively suppressing panel vibrations. These include the first controllers which use magnetic attitude control to actively suppress vibrations, and where the periodic vibration suppression controller is able to guarantee asymptotic stability of the linearized system. It was found that for larger panels, the controllers which actively suppressed the vibrations outperformed those that did not.