Practical Bandwidth-Constrained Attitude Control for Gravitational Wave Detection: Design and Ground Experiment

This paper focuses on the satellite attitude control problem in space-based gravitational wave (GW) detection missions. To meet the pointing accuracy requirement in terms of amplitude spectrum density, a proportional-derivative (PD)-type controller considering frequency domain constraints is proposed. The bandwidth of the satellite attitude control loop is desired to be minimized, and the optimal control gains are tuned by using the multipopulation genetic algorithm technique. Compared with the existing frequency domain controller for space GW detection system, the proposed controller features a much simpler structure and is easier to implement in engineering. Furthermore, an air-bearing-based hardware in the loop (HIL) simulation system was constructed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller design method in a real-time environment. The influences of real physical components on control performance were analyzed. Both numerical and HIL simulation results demonstrated that the proposed control method adequately fulfills the frequency domain requirements for space GW detection missions.