Investigations of an integrated angular velocity measurement and attitude control system for spacecraft using magnetically suspended double-gimbal CMGs

This paper presents an integrated angular velocity measurement and attitude control system of spacecraft using magnetically suspended double-gimbal control moment gyros (MSDGCMGs). The high speed rotor of MSDGCMG is alleviated by a five-degree-of-freedom permanent magnet biased AMB control system. With this special rotor supported manner, the MSDGCMG has the function of attitude rate sensing as well as attitude control. This characteristic provides a new approach to a compact light-weight spacecraft design, which can combine these two functions into a single device. This paper discusses the principles and implementations of AMB-based angular velocity measurement. Spacecraft dynamics with DGMSCMG actuators, including the dynamics of magnetically suspended high-speed rotor, the dynamics of inner gimbal and outer gimbal, as well as the determination method of spacecraft angular velocity are modeled, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed integrated system is also validated numerically and experimentally.