The Lunar Orbiter Attitude Control Simulator

Testing the attitude control system of the LUNAR ORBITER was accommplished in an air-bearing facility specifically designed for that purpose. This facility was designed to minimize external disturbances in the platform by seismic motion of the floor, mass deflection of the platform, turbine torques from the air bearing, and thermal currents in the room. The facility was used for the System Design Verification tests. These tests included limit-cycle operation, maneuver sequences, wide-angle Sun acquisition and the star-acquisition (Canopus) sequence. Maneuver angle resolution was to be at least 0.1°±0.1° with the capability of measuring three-axis maneuvers for angles to 80°. The design philosophy as evolved from the experience obtained on company-funded research activities as well as the constraints and approach are presented. Solutions to the facility problem areas, which were predicted or encountered during testing, are detailed. Test results, verifying the solutions to the problems encountered, are discussed. Typical operating characteristics of the simulator during different phases of the LUNAR ORBITER test program are presented     

Detecting Instrument Malfunctions in Control Systems

A scheme for automatically detecting incipient failures in the feedback sensors (or instruments) of control systems is described. The feasibility of the scheme is investigated by applying it to a simplified version (fourth order) of the flight control system for a hydrofoil boat. A single set of inertial instruments is used to provide the feedback signals; the redundancy which is normally obtained by multiple instrument sets is obtained here, artificially, by a subsystem of multiple Luenberger observers and logic circuits. Tests indicate that scale factor errors, errors due to threshold effects, and bias errors in the instruments are detected as they occur. The tests also indicate further analytical work which should be done to explore the limitations of the basic scheme.