CubeSats have caused a renewed interest in magnetic control of satellites, and passive hysteresis damping in particular. Modeling actual hysteresis rods on a satellite is not trivial, and generally requires empirical data on the properties of the rods selected. Our newest CubeSat simulation demonstrates damping using rods in LEO. A permanent magnet is modeled using a constant dipole moment, and we expect the satellite to align with the magnetic field and damp. We evaluate the results by plotting the angle between the dipole and the Earth’s magnetic field and the body rates.

First, let’s verify the magnetic hysteresis model in the toolbox using the bulk material properties in orbit. We use a dipole model of the Earth’s magnetic field. The nice hysteresis curves below confirms that we are computing the derivatives of the magnetic field correctly in the body frame, which requires careful accounting of rotating coordinates. Also we stay within the saturation limits which means our magnetic flux derivatives are correct too.

Hysteresis curves from simulating magnetic hysteresis in orbit

We will assume the rods are 1 mm radius and 95 mm length, with rods placed perpendicular to each other and the permanent magnet. Three rods are used per axis. The apparent rod parameters are taken from the literature. The actual rods will not reach saturation while in orbit, so we will see a minor loop.

Minor loops from damping rods using apparent properties

The rods produce only a small amount of damping per orbit, so we have to run for many orbits or days to see significant damping – in some passive satellites, the total time allotted for stabilization is two months! In this case we test the rods’ ability to damp the torque induced by turning on a torque rod with a dipole of 1 AM2 and allowing the CubeSat to align itself with the magnetic field, starting from LVLH pointing.

Damping in LEO using hysteresis rods

Simulating the rods is time-intensive, with a timestep of about 4 seconds required – which makes a simulation of several days on orbit take several minutes of computation. Once performance of the rods has been verified, a simple damping factor can be substituted.

This new simulation along with the functions for hysteresis rod dynamics will be in the new version of our CubeSat Toolbox, due for release in June!

References:

1. F. Santoni and M. Zelli, “Passive magnetic attitude stabilization of the UNISAT-4 micro satellite”, Acta Astronautica,65 (2009) pp. 792-803
2. J. Tellinen, “A Simple Scalar Model for Magnetic Hysteresis”, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 34, No. 4, July 1998
3. T. Flatley and D. Henretty, “A Magnetic Hysteresis Model”, N95-27801 (NASA Technical Repoets Server), 1995