TY - JOUR
T1 - Design and analysis of attitude observers based on the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle applied to constrained three-vehicle formations
AU - Cruz, Pedro
AU - Batista, Pedro
AU - Sanyal, Amit
N1 - Funding Information:
The work of P. Cruz was supported by the PhD Grant PD/BD/143143/2019 from FCT. This work was also supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through LARSyS - FCT Project UIDB/50009/2020 and through the FCT project DECENTER [LISBOA-01–0145-FEDER-029605], funded by the Programa Operacional Regional de Lisboa 2020 and PIDDAC programs.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 COSPAR
PY - 2022/6/1
Y1 - 2022/6/1
N2 - Constrained formations of vehicles are interesting in a variety of space mission scenarios for their potential ability to solve complex problems with relatively simple and specialized individual systems. However, the analysis of such formations can present some challenges. In this paper, an attitude observer is designed with the intent of applying it to three-vehicle heterogeneous formations with no line of sight between two of the vehicles. Each vehicle measures directions to other vehicles and independent inertial reference vectors. The relative direction between the two vehicles with no line of sight cannot be measured. Under some assumptions, these relative measurements yield a reconstructed attitude, which, together with the angular velocities measured by rate gyros, drive the observers. The attitude observers are identical and independently applied to each vehicle. Their design is based on the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle of variational mechanics, considering only kinematic models. The attitude observers are locally exponentially stable and each estimation error is shown to converge to zero error for almost all initial conditions. Finally, a series of numerical Monte Carlo simulations of the discrete-time form of the observers validate the stability and convergence characteristics of the observers under the appropriate assumptions on the availability of a reconstructed attitude.
AB - Constrained formations of vehicles are interesting in a variety of space mission scenarios for their potential ability to solve complex problems with relatively simple and specialized individual systems. However, the analysis of such formations can present some challenges. In this paper, an attitude observer is designed with the intent of applying it to three-vehicle heterogeneous formations with no line of sight between two of the vehicles. Each vehicle measures directions to other vehicles and independent inertial reference vectors. The relative direction between the two vehicles with no line of sight cannot be measured. Under some assumptions, these relative measurements yield a reconstructed attitude, which, together with the angular velocities measured by rate gyros, drive the observers. The attitude observers are identical and independently applied to each vehicle. Their design is based on the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle of variational mechanics, considering only kinematic models. The attitude observers are locally exponentially stable and each estimation error is shown to converge to zero error for almost all initial conditions. Finally, a series of numerical Monte Carlo simulations of the discrete-time form of the observers validate the stability and convergence characteristics of the observers under the appropriate assumptions on the availability of a reconstructed attitude.
KW - Attitude Estimation
KW - Attitude Measurement
KW - Constrained Formation
KW - Lagrange-D'Alembert Principle
KW - Spacecraft Formation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2022.03.003
DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2022.03.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127917548
SN - 0273-1177
VL - 69
SP - 4001
EP - 4012
JO - Advances in Space Research
JF - Advances in Space Research
IS - 11
ER -