Abolfazl Shirazi and Mehran Mirshams
International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sicences, vol. 15, no. 2, pp.190-198, 2014

Abstract : The pyramidal reaction wheel arrangement is one of the configurations that can be used in attitude control simulators for evaluation of attitude control performance in satellites. In this arrangement, the wheels are oriented in a pyramidal configuration with a tilt angle. In this paper, a study of pyramidal reaction wheel arrangement is carried out in order to find the optimum tilt angle that minimizes total power consumption of the system. The attitude control system is analyzed and the pyramidal configuration is implemented in numerical simulation. Optimization is carried out by using an iterative process and the optimum tilt angle that provides minimum system power consumption is obtained. Simulation results show that the system requires the least power by using optimum tilt angle in reaction wheels arrangement.

Keyword : Pyramidal Arrangement, Satellite, Attitude Control, Reaction Wheel