Variable speed control moment gyroscopes for reorientation maneuvers of rigid spacecraft

Feedforward steering laws for variable speed control moment gyroscopes are designed using an inverse simulation method based on a constrained optimization algorithm. The technique fully exploits torque actuator redundancy provided by the system to efficiently avoid singular states and to deal with the issues of position/rate saturation and/or gimbal mechanical failure. Rest-to-rest slew maneuvers are specified in terms of time evolution of Euler angles or rotation angle about the eigenaxis. System performance is improved by taking advantage of wheel speed variation with limited increment of required power. Real-time implementation of the algorithm may be problematic due to the complexity of the dynamical model and the high number of constraints.