Quasi-Normalized Analysis of Satellite Stabilization with Pulse-Width Pulse-Frequency Modulator in Presence of Noise

In this study, stabilization attitude control of a rigid satellite with on-off thrusters using pulse-width pulse-frequency (PWPF) modulator is investigated in presence of sensor noise. The preferred regions of the PWPF modulator parameters and stabilization control gain are obtained based on the two performance indices of the fuel consumption and the total number of thruster firings. The analyses include tumbling, detumbling, and stabilization block as an internal loop of the satellite pointing mode. The design parameters are reduced by using the quasi-normalized equations of PWPF modulator. Therefore, the preferred regions are extracted based on search method in terms of grouped parameters, regardless of the value of each parameter, separately. In quasi-normalized form, the computational burden is considerably decreased, especially in the statistical analysis in the presence of sensor noise. The parametric study is carried out with/without sensor noise. The parameters are also tuned using multi-objective optimization with genetic algorithm for stabilization mode without sensor noise. In the presence of sensor noise, the behaviors of the parameters are plotted versus the noise power spectral density. In order to better specify the preferred regions, each quasi-normalized design curve is plotted for a specified value of the input noise power spectral density. The parameters of the satellite attitude control system are suggested to be tuned/optimized within the preferred regions of the parameters in the stabilization loop as an internal loop.