MATLAB/Simulink Numerical Simulation of a Spacecraft With Reaction Wheels Having Static and Dynamic Imbalances Wahyu Wira Yudha (a), Riries Rulaningtyas (a), Akif Rahmatillah (a), Harry Septanto (b*)
a) Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, 60115, Indonesia
b) Research Center for Smart Mechatronics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Bandung, 40135, Indonesia.
*harry.septanto[at]brin.go.id
Abstract
Using reaction wheels for attitude control purposes introduces jitter problems due to their static and dynamic imbalances. That is because we can not avoid imperfections in manufacturing. As a result, it is important to take this into account when designing an attitude control system that involves computational simulation of the system model. In simplified models of the reaction wheels with imbalances, the forces and torques that were originally brought on by the reaction wheels are viewed as external disturbances. However, it is not physically realistic. Instead, there is a model that was derived based on the first-principle approach called the fully coupled model that meets the angular momentum conservation, hence is physically realistic. The fully coupled model was implemented in Basilisk, or BSK for short. Nevertheless, those who are not familiar with this software framework may implement the fully coupled model in the software they are more accustomed to using, such as MATLAB/Simulink. In addition, the reference article that reported the fully coupled model contains sophisticated and interrelated mathematical equations that are all used for explanations of how they were generated rather than for simulation purposes. This paper addresses the implementation of the model on MATLAB/Simulink. This paper describes the equations used in the simulation and their purposes. The numerical simulation run confirms the simulation validation.
