Space-borne motor friction estimation using genetic algorithm (GA)

This paper presents an evolutionary system identification method for an electrical system where the friction existing in the motor used for positioning the antenna of a spacecraft is estimated. Here the system identification problem is formulated as an optimization task where the objective is to find a model and a set of parameters that minimize the prediction error between the plant output and the model output. GA is used to find unknown characteristic friction of the motor working in a spacecraft from the system input and output data which are available from the spacecraft telemetry. The overall system is implemented using SIMULINK.