The Aerospace Corporation

Craig M Heatwole

Louis K Herman

Brian T Hamada

Girard M Manke

Ian M McCain

A fault detection pseudo gyro emulates mechanical gyros by processing space system appendage measurement data and reaction wheel tachometer data within reference and control systems of a satellite to compute the vehicular bus angular velocity rate data by accounting for external torques, the momentum transfer between the satellite, the bus, and the appendages for providing accurate relative vehicular position and angular velocity rate data in an attitude reference and control systems now having accurate vehicular angular velocity rate data while enabling fault detection of hardware gyros and momentum sensors.

Fault detection pseudo gyro

A pseudo gyro emulates mechanical gyros by software processes by processing space system appendage measurement data and reaction wheel tachometer data within reference and control systems of a satellite using principals of conservation of momentum to compute the vehicular bus angular velocity rate data by accounting for external torque, the momentum transfer between the satellite, the bus, and the appendages for providing accurate relative vehicular position and angular velocity rate data as an integral part of attitude reference and control systems now having higher reliability, longer life times, lower power consumption, and more accurate vehicular angular velocity rate data generated within high bandwidth operations. A specific improvement is the use of a bias torque estimator for accounting for uncertainties in external torque estimations for accurate total system momentum computations.

Pseudo gyro with unmodeled disturbance torque estimation

A pseudo gyro emulates mechanical gyros by software processes by processing space system appendage measurement data and reaction wheel tachometer data within reference and control systems of a satellite using principals of conservation of momentum to compute the vehicular bus angular velocity rate data by accounting for the momentum transfer between the satellite, the bus, and the appendages for providing accurate relative vehicular position and angular velocity rate data as an integral part of attitude reference and control systems now having higher reliability, longer life times, lower power consumption, and more accurate vehicular angular velocity rate data generated within high bandwidth operations.

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Redondo Beach, CA, United States of America

Craig M Heatwole