Natural Magneto-velocity Coordinate System for Satellite Attitude Stabilization: Dynamics and Stability Analysis

The paper addresses the problem of attitude stabilization of an artificial Earth satellite with the aid of an electrodynamic control system. Our objective is to stabilize the satellite in a special coordinate system, whose axes are directed along the Lorentz force vector and the geomagnetic induction vector. Thus, natural magneto-velocity coordinate system (NMVCS) is used. We consider the general case of the satellite mass distribution. Therefore, the disturbing action of the gravitation torque is taken into account. The satellite moves along a circular near-Earth orbit. The nonlinear stability analysis based on the Lyapunov direct method is applied in the paper. The proposed approach gives us admissible domains of control parameters for which attitude stabilization in NMVCS is guaranteed without restrictions on the Earth’s magnetic field model. Stabilization conditions are formulated in the form of explicit inequalities for the control parameters. As a result, a control strategy for the satellite attitude stabilization in the NMVCS is elaborated.