Performance evaluation of the inverse dynamics method for optimal spacecraft reorientation

• The inverse dynamics method is used for optimal attitude trajectory generation.
• The method is applied to quaternions, Euler angles and modified Rodrigues parameters.
• Trajectories are represented by polynomials defined in time and virtual domains.
• Inverse dynamics applied to virtual domain improves the time-optimal solution.
• Attitude representation influences solution quality and computational time.

This paper investigates the application of the inverse dynamics in the virtual domain method to Euler angles, quaternions, and modified Rodrigues parameters for rapid optimal attitude trajectory generation for spacecraft reorientation maneuvers. The impact of the virtual domain and attitude representation is numerically investigated for both minimum time and minimum energy problems. Owing to the nature of the inverse dynamics method, it yields sub-optimal solutions for minimum time problems. Furthermore, the virtual domain improves the optimality of the solution, but at the cost of more computational time. The attitude representation also affects solution quality and computational speed. For minimum energy problems, the optimal solution can be obtained without the virtual domain with any considered attitude representation.