Nonlinear Thermal Modeling and Predictive Control for Spacecraft Optical Temperature Regulation

Abstract

Maintaining a stable thermal environment is critical for spacecraft carrying precision optics, as temperature gradients and thermal expansion can alter the geometric alignment of optical components, compromise wavefront sensing, and degrade image quality even when active thermal systems provide real-time control. In particular, the temperature of the optical payload must be controlled to sub-Kelvin tolerances about the desired setpoint, a requirement that is often difficult to achieve with conventional reactive control methods. To this end, this paper develops a novel nonlinear thermal model for the optical system of a spacecraft, accounting for conduction, radiation, and the changing radiative environment induced by the spacecraft's orbit. Using this model, we develop a model predictive control (MPC) methodology that enables closed-loop thermal regulation of the optical compartment under realistic orbital conditions. Since only partial, noise-corrupted temperature measurements are available, an Unscented Kalman Filter is employed to estimate the full thermal state, yielding a certainty-equivalence MPC controller obtained via recursive online optimization. The thermal model is validated against a high-fidelity thermal simulator, and the proposed approach is compared against conventional PID control, the prevailing method for on-orbit thermal regulation.