Parameter Identification for an Uncooperative Captured Satellite with Spinning Reaction Wheels

A novel identification method is developed which identifies the accumulated angular momentum (AAM) of spinning reaction wheels (RWs) of an uncooperative satellite captured by a robotic servicer. In contrast to other methods that treat captured satellite's RWs as non-spinning, the developed method provides simultaneously accurate estimates of the AAM of the captured satellite's RWs and of the inertial parameters of the entire system consisting of the robotic servicer and of the captured satellite. These estimates render the system free-floating dynamics fully identified and available to model-based control. Three-dimensional simulations demonstrate the method's validity. To show its usefulness, the performance of a model-based controller is evaluated with and without knowledge of the captured satellite's RWs AAM.