ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

This paper is concerned with new attitude guidance algorithms based on the flatness framework for satellites actuated by reaction wheels. The flatness property of the satellite model is first demonstrated. Then the trajectories are parameterised using B-splines bases, and a collocation procedure is defined for constraints satisfaction. This leads to an optimisation scheme that has been implemented in Matlab routines to derive a powerful software tool that can be easily used by any engineer, without requiring any prior knowledge on flatness theory. Thales Alenia Space has tested and evaluated the developed methodology and related algorithms on two satellites for different kind of manoeuvres and performance requirements. It has been shown that the derived slew guidance profiles significantly improves the tranquillisation duration, and allows the global control scheme to better manage flexible appendages oscillations at the end of the manoeuvre.