Investigating the domain of attraction of SDRE applied to a CubeSat attitude control system during launch orbit phase based on cold gas thrusters

Abstract

The precision of controlling the attitude of a CubeSat during the injection phase in orbit is of fundamental importance for the success of the mission. In general, the CubeSat starts this phase with high angular velocity, and then the controller needs to maneuver the CubeSat to its nominal mode of operation, which is characterized by an attitude of small angles. One way to achieve such a transition between these two modes is by using cold gas thrusters. In this paper, we investigate the region of attraction (ROA) of the State-Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) applied to the Attitude Control System (ACS) algorithm during the Launch and Early Orbit Phase which has nonlinear dynamics due to the high angular velocities and perturbations. The SDRE controller is based on cold gas thruster torques to reduce the high angular velocities. The main result of this investigation is the approach to numerically approximate the ROA.

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