Solar sails are trickier to direct than they appear. Here's a new way to keep them on track - by AndyTomaswick
While useful in all types of systems, these types of controls are especially useful in spacecraft. All spacecraft have them to one degree or another, and it is certainly not the first time someone has thought to apply a control system to a solar sail propulsion system. However, there are several disadvantages to the ones developed so far.
To understand those disadvantages, it is better first to understand the specific kind of control methodology used in the new paper recently published in Space: Science & Technology. Known as “fuzzy logic,” these systems are a contrast to standard Boolean logic that computers use. Instead of the 1s and 0s of Boolean math, fuzzy logic can use any number between 0 and 1 as both an input and an output.
Using more varied numbers increases the complexity significantly, so typically there is a significant amount of training that has to go into controllers that use fuzzy logic. That training can be thought of as being similar to that associated with neural networks, a common type of AI architecture. However, there isn’t a whole lot of data available on solar sail systems, as not many of them have taken flight yet.
Their solution is known as an Intelligent Fuzzy Logic Controller Designer, which essentially designs its own fuzzy logic controller using neural network modeling. The system would automatically generate a fuzzy logic controller based on the parameters input into it. That logic controller would allow operators to control the attitude of their solar sail system.
To test this new controller, the authors did develop a computational model of an example solar sail with four distinct components, a spacecraft “kernel,” a box for the controller, a frame, and the solar sail itself.
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