Development and validation of reaction wheel disturbance models: Empirical model

Accurate disturbance models are necessary to predict the effects of vibrations on the performance of precision space-based telescopes, such as the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). There are many possible disturbance sources on such spacecraft, but mechanical jitter from the reaction wheel assembly (RWA) is anticipated to be the largest. A method has been developed and implemented in the form of a MATLAB toolbox to extract parameters for an empirical disturbance model from RWA micro-vibration data. The disturbance model is based on one that was used to predict the vibration behaviour of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) wheels and assumes that RWA disturbances consist of discrete harmonics of the wheel speed with amplitudes proportional to the wheel speed squared. The MATLAB toolbox allows the extension of this empirical disturbance model for application to any reaction wheel given steady state vibration data. The toolbox functions are useful for analyzing RWA vibration data, and the model provides a good estimate of the disturbances over most wheel speeds. However, it is shown that the disturbances are under-predicted by a model of this form over some wheel speed ranges. The poor correlation is due to the fact that the empirical model does not account for disturbance amplifications caused by interactions between the harmonics and the structural modes of the wheel. Experimental data from an ITHACO Space Systems E-type reaction wheel are used to illustrate the model development and validation process. (C) 2002 Academic Press.