Aas 03-611 Comparison of System Identification Techniques for a Spherical Air-bearing Spacecraft Simulator

Virginia Tech has developed a testbed comprised of two independent spherical air-bearing platforms for formation flying attitude control simulation, the Distributed Spacecraft Attitude Control System Simulator. The DSACSS is intended to support a wide range of functions; as such, requiring that all controllers be robust to approximations of the system parameters is impractical. We document the process to determine an appropriate system identification technique for an air-bearing spacecraft simulator. We present an overview of many of the available techniques but focus on adaptations to classical sequential filters. We document both accuracy and computation time and conclude that further analysis of each filter type is necessary.