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arXiv · 1807.08109

An Adaptive Groundtrack Maintenance Scheme for Spacecraft with Electric Propulsion

Mirko Leomanni·Andrea Garulli·Antonio Giannitrapani·Fabrizio Scortecci
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Abstract

In this paper, the repeat-groundtrack orbit maintenance problem is addressed for spacecraft driven by electric propulsion. An adaptive solution is proposed, which combines an hysteresis controller and a recursive least squares filter. The controller provides a pulse-width modulated command to the thruster, in compliance with the peculiarities of the electric propulsion technology. The filter takes care of estimating a set of environmental disturbance parameters, from inertial position and velocity measurements. The resulting control scheme is able to compensate for the groundtrack drift due to atmospheric drag, in a fully autonomous manner. A numerical study of a low Earth orbit mission confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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Mirko Leomanni, Andrea Garulli, Antonio Giannitrapani, Fabrizio Scortecci. 2019-06-03. An Adaptive Groundtrack Maintenance Scheme for Spacecraft with Electric Propulsion. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2019.11.035

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