Near Minimum Time Maneuver with Effective Utilization of Actuator Capacity for high Precision Spacecrafts

Satellite imagery data generates huge revenue due to its numerous applications in various fields. This requires the imagery and earth observation satellites to perform frequent rapid maneuvers for capturing images of different locations on earth. Due to simplicity in computation, Eigen axis rotation with single switch smoothed bang-bang control is widely used for rest to rest maneuvers, even though it is not optimal minimum time maneuver. However, this is a near minimum time maneuver and the time of maneuver depends on the torque and angular acceleration that the actuator configuration can provide along the Eigen axis, which varies for different maneuvers. This paper proposes maximization of angular acceleration along the Eigen axis thereby utilizing maximum actuator capacity to reduce the maneuver time without compromising the tracking and pointing error. The effect of assuming non optimal angular acceleration for Eigen axis rotation of different maneuvers is also brought to light in this paper.