TETHERING AUTOMATIC CONTROL SYSTEM Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: docking of cooperated space vehicles. SUBSTANCE: system includes devices for measuring error angle of passive space vehicle relative to sighting line, devices for measuring error angle of active space vehicle relative to sighting line and angle of mutual roll, devices for measuring the range and closure rate; system includes also passive vehicle angle and angular velocity output unit, actuating members and orientation setting unit mounted on passive vehicles; besides that system includes the following components mounted on board active vehicle; actuating members, orientation control unit, center-of-mass motion control unit, closure rate control unit, orientation setting unit, active vehicle angle and angular velocity output unit, two adders, storage unit, error angle computer unit, sighting line angular velocity computer unit and control command output unit. Proposed system is used for performing tethering process at correction of lateral motion of center of mass of active space vehicle by calculated angle of position of sighting line relative to selected coordinate system whose present magnitude is determined taking into account measurements of error angle of active vehicle relative to sighting line. Orientation of active and passive space vehicles is effected relative to the same coordinate system, thus providing for parallelism of their body axes in space. EFFECT: enhanced efficiency. 3 cl, 5 dwg