Design and Simulation of Sailcraft Attitude Control
Systems Using the Solar Sail Control Toolbox
Stephanie Thomas
*
and Michael Paluszek
†
Princeton Satellite Systems, Princeton, NJ 08542
Bong Wie
‡
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287
David Murphy
§
Able Engineering, Inc., Goleta, CA 93117
A MATLAB-based software tool, called the Solar Sail Control Toolbox, has been devel-
oped for solar sail analysis, design and simulation. The toolbox includes functions for multi-
body dynamic modeling, attitude control systems design, thrust vector control design, orbit
analysis, solar sail mission analysis, thermal analysis and power subsystem analysis. Sail-
craft models can be created, analyzed and simulated in the toolbox without the need to
deal with any other software tools. This paper demonstrates the toolbox by showing how a
gossamer sailcraft with a moving mass actuator and spreader bar control system is modeled
and simulated. The toolbox couples attitude and orbit dynamics into the same simulations.
The user can choose from several different attitude dynamics models, including specially
developed multibody models for the moving mass and gimbaled boom control systems, and
from several orbit models including point mass, n-body and non-spherical earth. The mov-
ing mass, gimbaled boom, and non-spherical earth dynamics are developed in this paper.
The moving mass model permits any number of moving masses that are constrained to
have one degree of translational freedom. The gimbaled boom model includes two bodies
with one two degree-of-freedom hinge following Hooker’s formulation. The interconnected
rigid bodies have joints which allow only rotational motion. Both methods explicitly elimi-
nate constrained degrees of freedom. The non-spherical Earth gravitational model employs
the recursive non-singular (except r = 0) method of Mueller and Gottlieb. A disturbance
modeling package is included which can be used independently or integrated with the solar
sail simulations. Environmental disturbances are: optical disturbances including solar pres-
sure radiation, earth albedo and earth radiation; magnetic and radio-frequency torques;
thermal; and aerodynamics. This paper includes the mathematical formulations of the
disturbances. It is also possible to include user models of components and disturbances,
such as sail membrane models with center of pressure/center of mass offsets. Spacecraft
models are created using a graphical computer-aided design package that is included in
the toolbox. The component information defined in the CAD package is used to generate
mass properties and for all disturbance calculations. Component-level data includes optical
and thermal properties for the surfaces; mass, center-of-mass, and inertia; and magnetic
dipoles, RF sources, etc. Additional information can also be stored with each component
so that the CAD file serves as a database for all spacecraft model data. Simulations are
script-based. Controllers are implemented digitally and are not part of the simulation
right-hand-side.
*
Senior Technical Staff, 33 Witherspoon St., sjthomas@psatellite.com, (609) 279-9606. Member AIAA.
†
President, 33 Witherspoon St., map@psatellite.com, (609) 279-9606. Member AIAA.
‡
Professor, Dept. of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, bong.wie@asu.edu, (480) 965-8674, Fax (480) 965-1384. Associate
Fellow AIAA.
§
Chief Research Engineer, 7200 Holister Ave., dmurphy@aec-able.com, (805) 690-2439, Fax (805) 685-1369. Member AIAA.
1 of 26
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit
16 - 19 August 2004, Providence, Rhode Island
AIAA 2004-4890
Copyright © 2004 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.