فصلنامه علوم و فناوری فضایی (Jan 2011)
Modeling and Simulating the Earth’s Magnetic Field Utilizing the 10th Generation of IGRF and Comparison the Linear and Nonlinear Transformation in order to Use in Satellite Attitude Control
Abstract
Since last decades utilizing satellites in low earth orbits have had increasing tendency. These satellites experience the earth magnetic field due to their low altitude to the earth. The Earth magnetic intensity can be used in order to control the attitude of spacecraft utilizing the interaction between the earth magnetic field and magnetic dipoles which are generated in the body of satellite. First of all, for using this phenomenon the magnitude and direction of the Earth magnetic field have to be obtained. There are various ways in order to simulate the earth magnetic field, that the most accurate one is utilizing the harmonic coefficients and mathematical model of the earth magnetic field. In this study, the earth magnetic field is modeled based on the 10thgeneration of the IGRF coefficients and the results are verified with the most valid reference. Due the Earth magnetic field is used in order to attitude control of a spacecraft, it is necessary to transform the results into the spacecraft Body frame. This transformation can be obtained utilizing linear and nonlinear transformation. In the next step, based on the comparison of the results of the spacecraft attitude dynamics utilizing linear and nonlinear transformation the validity margin of linear transformation is studied.
