Calculation of small rocket trajectories using only rocket-to-launcher radial velocity data
Calculating small rocket trajectories using rocket to launcher radial velocity data
DOPPLER EFFECT↗
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Third surveyor launch slated at Cape Kennedy
Surveyor C spacecraft - flight plan, Atlas Centaur launch vehicle, tracking and communication, and trajectory
SURVEYOR III SPACECRAFT↗
NASA prepares to launch fourth Surveyor
Surveyor D spacecraft, Atlas Centaur launch vehicle, tracking and communication system, trajectory, and flight plan
ATLAS CENTAUR LAUNCH VEHICLE↗
Performance of the NASA laser ranging system in satellite tracking
NASA pulsed laser ranging systems for scientific satellite tracking, determining accuracy by trajectory and long arc orbital comparison
Johnson, T. S.↗
On the design of servosystems.
Two procedures are presented for the tracking problem whose desired trajectory is given as an output of a known dynamical system. Time-invariant, single-input, single-output, controllable and observable systems are considered. It is shown that the time-invariant overall structure with zero steady-state error can be obtained by choosing an appropriate dynamic controller and an appropriate cost functional.
Tomizuka, M.↗
Cosmic ray detector for high energy iron nuclei
An experiment to directly measure the differential energy spectra of nuclei with charge between 15-28 inclusive with a balloon borne instrument is presented. A High Energy Gas Cerenkov Spectrometer (HEGCS) is described, and consists of a 3 m diam drum 4.5 m tall containing three light diffusion chambers. A hodoscopic array of scintillators emit light into the top and bottom light chambers which serve for track recordings of the trajectory and charge of incident cosmic rays. A center chamber pressure vessel, the HEGCS, has a 4.0 m sr and a threshold of 50 GeV/amu. The hexagonal array scintillators have 24 elements/array feeding photomultiplier tubes at the vertices between the scintillators, with other PMTs located around the top and bottom chambers to capture escaped scintillator light. The HEGCS is filled with freon-12, with reflective paint on the inner surface to convert UV Cerenkov photons into visible photons near 425 nm.
Streitmatter, R. E.↗
Magnetic drifts at Io - Depletion of 10-MeV electrons at Voyager 1 encounter due to a forbidden zone
A model for magnetic field lines is used to track the Voyager spacecraft trajectory past Io back to the equatorial plane in order to determine the cause of an observed depletion of 10 MeV electrons in Io's orbit. The field lines are in the vicinity of an Alfven wing, a noncompressive field perturbation. It is suggested that the Jovian magnetospheric drift features influence the behavior of particles around Io, which also has a zone of reduced convection velocity. An analytical model is developed that demonstrates that a forbidden zone may exist around Io due to the gradient drifts and reduced convection velocity, and projections of particles convecting to the Io surface agree well with the Voyager data for particle concentrations. Discrepancies in the measured 9 MeV fluxes with respect to Pioneer data indicate that a possible change in the Io conductance in the interval between the passages of the two spacecraft.
Goldstein, B. E.↗
Stable Direct Adaptive Control of Linear Infinite-dimensional Systems Using a Command Generator Tracker Approach
A command generator tracker approach to model following contol of linear distributed parameter systems (DPS) whose dynamics are described on infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces is presented. This method generates finite dimensional controllers capable of exponentially stable tracking of the reference trajectories when certain ideal trajectories are known to exist for the open loop DPS; we present conditions for the existence of these ideal trajectories. An adaptive version of this type of controller is also presented and shown to achieve (in some cases, asymptotically) stable finite dimensional control of the infinite dimensional DPS.
Balas, M. J.↗
An economical semi-analytical orbit theory for micro-computer applications
An economical algorithm is presented for predicting the position of a satellite perturbed by drag and zonal harmonics J2 through J4. Simplicity being of the essence, drag is modeled as a secular decay rate in the semimajor axis (retarded motion) with the zonal perturbations modeled from a modified version of Brouwers formulas. The algorithm is developed as an alternative on-board orbit predictor; a back up propagator requiring low energy consumption; or a ground based propagator for microcomputer applications (e.g., at the foot of an antenna). An O(J2) secular retarded state partial matrix (matrizant) is also given to employ with state estimation. The theory has been implemented in BASIC on an inexpensive microcomputer, the program occupying under 8K bytes of memory. Simulated trajectory data and real tracking data are employed to illustrate the theory's ability to accurately accommodate oblateness and drag effects.
Gordon, R. A.↗
Design of force/position controllers for manipulators
The paper presents simple methods for the design of adaptive force and position controllers for robot manipulators within the hybrid control architecture. The force controller is composed of an adaptive PID feedback controller, an auxiliary signal and a force feedforward term, and achieves tracking of desired force setpoints in the constraint directions. The position controller consists of adaptive feedback and feedforward controllers and an auxiliary signal; and accomplishes tracking of desired position trajectories in the free directions. The controllers are capable of compensating for dynamic cross-couplings that exist between the position and force control loops in the hybrid control architecture. The adaptive controllers do not require knowledge of the complex dynamic model or parameter values of the manipulator or the environment. The proposed control schemes are computationally fast and suitable for implementation in on-line control with high sampling rates.
Seraji, H.↗
Adaptive force and position control of manipulators
Systematic methods for the design of adaptive force and position controllers for robot manipulators within the hybrid control architecture are presented. The force controller tracks the desired force setpoints while the position controller tracks the desired position trajectories. The present control schemes are computationally efficient and suitable for implementation in online control with high sampling rates.
Seraji, H.↗
An economical semi-analytical orbit theory for micro-computer applications
An economical algorithm is presented for predicting the position of a satellite perturbed by drag and zonal harmonics J sub 2 through J sub 4. Simplicity being of the essence, drag is modeled as a secular decay rate in the semi-axis (retarded motion); with the zonal perturbations modeled from a modified version of the Brouwers formulas. The algorithm is developed as: an alternative on-board orbit predictor; a back up propagator requiring low energy consumption; or a ground based propagator for microcomputer applications (e.g., at the foot of an antenna). An O(J sub 2) secular retarded state partial matrix (matrizant) is also given to employ with state estimation. The theory was implemented in BASIC on an inexpensive microcomputer, the program occupying under 8K bytes of memory. Simulated trajectory data and real tracking data are employed to illustrate the theory's ability to accurately accommodate oblateness and drag effects.
Gordon, R. A.↗
Adaptive hybrid control of manipulators
Simple methods for the design of adaptive force and position controllers for robot manipulators within the hybrid control architecuture is presented. The force controller is composed of an adaptive PID feedback controller, an auxiliary signal and a force feedforward term, and it achieves tracking of desired force setpoints in the constraint directions. The position controller consists of adaptive feedback and feedforward controllers and an auxiliary signal, and it accomplishes tracking of desired position trajectories in the free directions. The controllers are capable of compensating for dynamic cross-couplings that exist between the position and force control loops in the hybrid control architecture. The adaptive controllers do not require knowledge of the complex dynamic model or parameter values of the manipulator or the environment. The proposed control schemes are computationally fast and suitable for implementation in on-line control with high sampling rates.
Seraji, H.↗
Case studies in configuration control for redundant robots
A simple approach to configuration control of redundant robots is presented. The redundancy is utilized to control the robot configuration directly in task space, where the task will be performed. A number of task-related kinematic functions are defined and combined with the end-effector coordinates to form a set of configuration variables. An adaptive control scheme is then utilized to ensure that the configuration variables track the desired reference trajectories as closely as possible. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the control scheme. The scheme has also been implemented for direct online control of a PUMA industrial robot, and experimental results are presented. The simulation and experimental results validate the configuration control scheme for performing various realistic tasks.
Seraji, H.↗
Flight guidance research for recovery from microburst wind shear
Research is in progress to develop flight strategy concepts for avoidance and recovery from microburst wind shears. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the performance of various strategies for recovery from wind shear encountered during the approach-to-landing, examine the associated piloting factors, and evaluate the payoff of forward-look sensing. Both batch and piloted simulations are utilized. The industry-recommended manual recovery technique is used as a baseline strategy. Two advanced strategies were selected for the piloted tests. The first strategy emulates the recovery characteristics shown by prior optimal trajectory analysis, by initially tracking the glideslope, then commanding a shallow climb. The second strategy generates a flight path angle schedule that is a function of airplane energy state and the instantaneous shear strength. All three strategies are tested with reactive sensing only and with forward-look sensing. Piloted simulation tests are in progress. Tentative results indicate that, using only reactive alerts, there appears to be little difference in performance between the various strategies. With forward-look alerts, the advanced guidance strategies appear to have advantages over the baseline strategy. Relatively short forward-look alert times, on the order of 10 or 15 seconds, produce a far greater recovery benefit than optimizing a recovery from a reactive alert.
Hinton, David A.↗
An adaptive identification and control scheme for large space structures
A unified identification and control scheme capable of achieving space at form performance objectives under nominal or failure conditions is described. Preliminary results are also presented, showing that the methodology offers much promise for effective robust control of large space structures. The control method is a multivariable, adaptive, output predictive controller called Model Predictive Control (MPC). MPC uses a state space model and input reference trajectories of set or tracking points to adaptively generate optimum commands. For a fixed model, MPC processes commands with great efficiency, and is also highly robust. A key feature of MPC is its ability to control either nonminimum phase or open loop unstable systems. As an output controller, MPC does not explicitly require full state feedback, as do most multivariable (e.g., Linear Quadratic) methods. Its features are very useful in LSS operations, as they allow non-collocated actuators and sensors. The identification scheme is based on canonical variate analysis (CVA) of input and output data. The CVA technique is particularly suited for the measurement and identification of structural dynamic processes - that is, unsteady transient or dynamically interacting processes such as between aerodynamics and structural deformation - from short, noisy data. CVA is structured so that the identification can be done in real or near real time, using computationally stable algorithms. Modeling LSS dynamics in 1-g laboratories has always been a major impediment not only to understanding their behavior in orbit, but also to controlling it. In cases where the theoretical model is not confirmed, current methods provide few clues concerning additional dynamical relationships that are not included in the theoretical models. CVA needs no a priori model data, or structure; all statistically significant dynamical states are determined using natural, entropy-based methods. Heretofore, a major limitation in applying adaptive controllers to LSS problems has been the requirement for accurate models. We feel that MPC coupled with the CVA identification scheme will resolve this limitation. The results are based on research performed under an SBIR grant, administered by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Carroll, J. V.↗
Analytic Guidance for the First Entry in a Skip Atmospheric Entry
This paper presents an analytic method to generate a reference drag trajectory for the first entry portion of a skip atmospheric entry. The drag reference, expressed as a polynomial function of the velocity, will meet the conditions necessary to fit the requirements of the complete entry phase. The generic method proposed to generate the drag reference profile is further simplified by thinking of the drag and the velocity as density and cumulative distribution functions respectively. With this notion it will be shown that the reference drag profile can be obtained by solving a linear algebraic system of equations. The resulting drag profile is flown using the feedback linearization method of differential geometric control as guidance law with the error dynamics of a second order homogeneous equation in the form of a damped oscillator. This approach was first proposed as a revisited version of the Space Shuttle Orbiter entry guidance. However, this paper will show that it can be used to fly the first entry in a skip entry trajectory. In doing so, the gains in the error dynamics will be changed at a certain point along the trajectory to improve the tracking performance.
Garcia-Llama, Eduardo↗
Multi-sensor Testing for Automated Rendezvous and Docking
During the past two years, many sensors have been tested in an open-loop fashion in the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Flight Robotics Laboratory (FRL) to both determine their suitability for use in Automated Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) systems and to ensure the test facility is prepared for future multi-sensor testing. The primary focus of this work was in support of the CEV AR&D system, because the AR&D sensor technology area was identified as one of the top risks in the program. In 2006, four different sensors were tested individually or in a pair in the MSFC FRL. In 2007, four sensors, two each of two different types, were tested simultaneously. In each set of tests, the target was moved through a series of pre-planned trajectories while the sensor tracked it. In addition, a laser tracker "truth" sensor also measured the target motion. The tests demonstrated the functionality of testing four sensors simultaneously as well as the capabilities (both good and bad) of all of the different sensors tested. This paper outlines the test setup and conditions, briefly describes the facility, summarizes the earlier results of the individual sensor tests, and describes in some detail the results of the four-sensor testing. Post-test analysis includes data fusion by minimum variance estimation and sequential Kalman filtering. This Sensor Technology Project work was funded by NASA's Exploration Technology Development Program.
Howard, Richard T.↗