Performance analysis of an attitude control system for solar sails using sliding masses

This paper deals with the attitude control performance analysis of a square solar sail. Two sliding masses are moved inside and along mast lanyards for the control around the pitch and yaw axes. An optimal linear controller with a feedback and a feedforward part is used to control the attitude of the sail. Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the system’s ability of performing precise and near-time-optimal reorientation maneuvers as well as the controller’s sensitivity with respect to the sail parameters, as the center of pressure to the center of mass offset or the sail’s size. Our simulation results are finally shown and discussed.