Novel robotic spacecraft simulator with mini-control moment gyroscopes and rotating thrusters

A novel hardware-in-the-loop spacecraft simulator is introduced for the laboratory validation of guidance, navigation and control algorithms. This three-degrees-of-freedom robotic vehicle uses the principle of air-floating along a flat floor in order to reproduce in two dimensions the frictionless and weightlessness conditions of the orbital flight. For the first time in its class, to the authors´ knowledge, the new spacecraft simulator uses miniature control moment gyroscopes for the attitude control and rotating thrusters for both attitude and translational control. A pseudo-GPS, a LIDAR and a fiber optic gyroscope are used as navigation sensors. The paper presents in details the design of the robotic vehicle and the results of preliminary experiments.