Precise braking torque control for momentum flywheels based on a singular perturbation analysis

Momentum flywheels are widely applied for the generation of small and precise torque for the attitude control and inertial stabilization of satellites and space stations. Due to its inherited system nonlinearity, the tracking performance of the flywheel torque/speed in dynamic/plug braking operations is limited when a conventional controller is employed. To take advantage of the well-separated two-time-scale quantities of a flywheel driving system, the singular perturbation technique is adopted to improve the torque tracking performance. In addition, the composite control law, which combines slow- and fast- dynamic portions, is derived for flywheel driving systems. Furthermore, a novel control strategy for plug braking dynamics, which considers couplings between the Buck converter and the three-phase inverter load, is designed with easy implementation. Finally, experimental results are presented to demonstrate the correctness of the analysis and the superiority of the proposed methods.