Parameter estimation of an air-bearing suspended test table

A parameter estimation approach is proposed for parameter determination of a 3-axis air-bearing suspended test table. The table is to provide a balanced and frictionless environment for spacecraft ground test. To balance the suspension, the mechanical parameters of the table, including its angular inertias and centroid deviation from its rotating center, have to be determined first. Then sliding masses on the table can be adjusted by stepper motors to relocate the centroid of the table to its rotating center. Using the angular momentum theorem and the coriolis theorem, dynamic equations are derived describing the rotation of the table under the influence of gravity imbalance torque and activating torques. To generate the actuating torques, use of momentum wheels is proposed, whose virtue is that no active control is required to the momentum wheels, which merely have to spin at constant rates, thus avoiding the singularity problem and the difficulty of precisely adjusting the output torques, issues associated with control moment gyros. The gyroscopic torques generated by the momentum wheels, as they are forced by the table to precess, are sufficient to activate the table for parameter estimation. Then least-square estimation is be employed to calculate the desired parameters. The effectiveness of the method is validated by simulation.