Escape torque method for sun avoidance during spacecraft attitude maneuvers

Avoidance of light sensitive equipments from certain zones in attitude cone of a spacecraft is a common problem for spacecrafts especially during large angle manuevers. The formulation of the problem yields a constrained attitude path finding algorithm. This study presents a new method to avoid a certain target in space. The method uses an escape torque that is calculated using the principle of relationship between position, velocity and angular velocity of a vector, in certain conditions to escape from the forbidden zone. Addition of the escape torque to the control algorithm smoothly changes the direction of the satellite to avoid from unwanted attitudes. Advantage of the method is easy implementation and low computational need.