Torque distribution algorithm for effective use of reaction wheel torques and angular momentums

Recently, it has become more important that both wheel torques and angular momentums are used more effectively in order to improve the performance of the spacecraft agility, such as the high angular acceleration and rate, by using minimum spacecraft resources (i.e. minimum number of wheels which satisfies certain agility requirements). In this paper, shown is the wheel torque distribution algorithm which is effective in terms of both the wheel torques and angular momentums as much as possible. In the proposed algorithm, the wheel torques/angular momentums distributed from the current attitude torque/angular momentum can be optimal for particular direction like the spacecraft X/Y/Z axis. In addition, it is shown by numerical simulation that the proposed algorithm improves the usage of attitude control angular momentum by up to 60% compared to the optimal torque distribution algorithm.