General Electric Company

David S Shaw

Naresh Raman Patel

Jeffrey B Boka

Kevin D Kim

A unified spacecraft attitude control system includes a memory aboard the spacecraft, in which a linear transformation matrix [.alpha.] is stored, which includes information identifying pseudo-complementary pairs of thrusters, and the characteristics of each pseudo-complementary pair. During each control cycle of the spacecraft attitude control system, the error signal is multiplied by a gain representing a desired slew rate to form pulse-width signals {pw} for the pseudo-complementary paired thrusters. An augmented pulse-width vector matrix {PW} is formed by transformations, to eliminate negative values of pulse width. The actual thruster pulse widths {.DELTA.t} are calculated as {.DELTA.t}=[.alpha.]{PW}. The thrusters are energized by limited values of {.DELTA.t}.

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Plainsboro, NJ, United States of America

David S Shaw