Nonlinear dynamic model and control of three-axis stabilized liquid-filled spacecraft attitude system

The fuel slosh in the storage tanks affects the attitude dynamics of the liquid-filled spacecraft during orbit transferring. To describe the interactions between the fuel slosh dynamics and the spacecraft attitude dynamics, a novel nonlinear dynamic model for three-axis liquid-filled spacecraft is presented, and in this paper, the multi-body dynamics method is utilized. In this model, the fuel slosh is represented by the motions of an equivalent sphere pendulum, and the fuel slosh is underactuated. The proposed dynamics model meets the demand of attitude controller design of liquid-filled spacecraft. Then, a nonlinear proportional-plus-derivative (PD) type controller is designed for the proposed model based on the Lyapunov direct approach. This controller can suppress the fuel slosh and stabilize the attitude of the liquid-filled spacecraft. Numerical simulations are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed nonlinear dynamic model and the designed underactuated controller when compared with the conventional control scheme.