THE RESEARCH OF INCREASING LIFT ANDREDUCING DRAG FOR WING-TIP SAILS

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Drag force on solar sails due to absorption of solar radiation

We consider a special relativistic effect, known as the Poynting–Robertson effect, on various types of trajectories of solar sails. Since this effect occurs at order v^?/c, where v^? is the transversal speed relative to the sun, it can dominate over other special relativistic effects, which occur at order v²/c². While solar radiation can be used to propel the solar sail, the absorbed portion of it also gives rise to a drag force in the transversal direction. For escape trajectories, this diminishes the cruising velocity, which can have a cumulative effect on the heliocentric distance. For a solar sail directly facing the sun in a bound orbit, the Poynting–Robertson effect decreases its orbital speed, thereby causing it to slowly spiral towards the sun. We also consider this effect for non-Keplerian orbits in which the solar sail is tilted in the azimuthal direction. While in principle the drag force could be counter-balanced by an extremely small tilt of the solar sail in the polar direction, periodic adjustments are more feasible.     

Deorbiting spacecraft with passively stabilised attitude using a simplified quasi-rhombic-pyramid sail

This paper studies deorbiting using an analogue to the quasi-rhombic-pyramid concept for planar motion. The focus is on maintaining a stable (meaning oscillatory) attitude close to the direction of the velocity of the spacecraft relative to the atmosphere. The study consists of a massive computation of deorbit times chosen in a region of the phase space where atmospheric drag plays a leading role. Here, no damping effects are considered. Thus, any passive stabilisation observed is either due to solar radiation pressure or atmospheric drag. The results show that such stable deorbiting is feasible up to a threshold that depends upon the physical parameters of the sail. This threshold is around 500 km of altitude. Stable deorbiting is also shown to reduce the unpredictability that appears due to tumbling.     

Station keeping of a solar sail around a Halo orbit

Solar sails are a concept of spacecraft propulsion that takes advantage of solar radiation pressure to propel a spacecraft. Although the thrust provided by a solar sail is small it is constant and unlimited. This offers the chance to deal with novel mission concept. In this work we want to discuss the controllability of a spacecraft around a Halo orbit by means of a solar sail. We will describe the natural dynamics for a solar sail around a Halo orbit. By natural dynamics we mean the behaviour of the trajectory of a solar sail when no control on the sail orientation is applied. We will then discuss how a sequence of changes on the sail orientation will affects the sail's trajectory, and we will use this information to derive efficient station keeping strategies. Finally we will check the robustness of these strategies including different sources of errors in our simulations.     

混合小推力航天器日心悬浮轨道保持控制

针对太阳帆、太阳电混合推进航天器日心悬浮轨道保持控制问题进行了研究。为解决基于局部线性化模型设计轨道保持控制器时存在的控制精度不高、模型精确性过度依赖等问题,应用自抗扰控制(ADRC)技术设计了轨道保持控制器。首先,采用圆形限制性三体问题(CRTBP)模型推导了混合小推力航天器日心悬浮轨道动力学方程;然后,考虑系统模型不确定性和外部扰动,提出了一种基于扰动估计和补偿的轨道保持控制方法;最后,数值仿真表明存在系统模型不确定性、初始入轨误差及地球轨道偏心率扰动等因素的情况下,所设计的控制器仅需很小的速度增量即可实现高精度的日心悬浮轨道保持控制。     

翼尖附近流场研究及帆片减阻机理

在１米低速风洞中，对半展长直机翼翼尖用围空间流场进行了详细地研究，并分析了翼尖帆片的增升减阻机理。根据理论计算并结合试验结果设计的翼尖机片，经大低速风洞全机模型试验证明：翼尖装三个机片可使全机诱导阻力因子减小２１．４９％。这可供帆片设计时参考。     

Solar sail deployment dynamics

The deployment dynamics of a solar sail consisting of four flexible booms and four membrane quadrants are studied. First, previous work on modelling only one membrane quadrant attached to two axially moving beams using time-varying quasi-modal expansion is extended to be applicable to the complete four-quadrant system. This is achieved via “lifting” the quadrant-level matrices into system-level forms by mapping the former’s constituent blocks to the correct partitions in the latter. After the quadrant-to-system conversion of the matrices, the equations of motion from the authors’ previous work readily apply to the complete system. Modal analysis is performed on a constant-length sail to validate the model’s basic foundations against the results obtained by finite element methods in the past literature. Deployment simulation results are presented, numerical parameter studies that show possibility of instability are performed using the system’s eigenvalues, and the stability results are discussed.     

混合小推力航天器轨道保持高性能滑模控制

针对采用太阳帆、太阳电混合小推力推进的航天器，研究了其在日心悬浮轨道的保持控制问题。为解决已有控制方法中未综合考虑内部未建模动态和外部未知扰动的问题，以及进一步提高系统控制性能，设计了一种高性能滑模控制策略。首先，考虑模型不确定性，建立了混合小推力航天器在日心悬浮轨道柱面坐标系的动力学方程；其次，基于改进型条件积分滑模面和径向基（RBF）神经网络设计了控制律，结合自适应方法在线估计不确定参数；接着，将求取的虚拟控制量在推进剂最优条件下转换成实际控制量，即太阳帆姿态角和太阳电推进力；最后，数值仿真验证了上述设计方法提高了系统鲁棒性，减小了轨道位置超调，并且混合推进相比于单一太阳帆推进，在更短收敛时间内控制精度提高了4个数量级，相比于单一太阳电推进，一年可以节省约89.6%的推进剂。     

翼梢帆片－机翼非定常气动力计算研究

本文应用偶极子网格法，数值研究矩形机翼与它三对翼梢帆片的干扰非定常气动力。数值结果表明，由于帆片的干扰效应，使翼梢区域剖面的升压系数分布发生畸变，在１／４弦长附近出现凹坑。干扰升压随振荡频率的增大而增大。在定常和低频振荡的范围内，帆片对机翼气动力的干扰贡献比帆片本身的贡献大，随着振荡频率的增大后者的贡献逐渐变得重要起来。     

Numerical techniques for generating and refining solar sail trajectories

Like all applications in trajectory design, the design of solar sail trajectories requires a transition from analytical models to numerically generated realizations of an orbit. In astrodynamics, three numerical strategies are often employed. Differential correctors (also known as shooting methods) are perhaps the most common techniques. Finite-difference methods and collocation schemes are also employed and are successful in generating trajectories with pseudo-continuous control histories. These three numerical techniques are employed here to generate periodic trajectories displaced below the Moon in a circular restricted three-body system. All these approaches reveal trajectory options within the design space for solar sail applications.