Pulse Equivalent Area Based Orientation of a Class of Under-Actuated System under Constraints

A PEA (Pulse Equivalent Area) approach for orientation control of an under actuated pointing device is proposed. The presented work is a sequel to the earlier work done by the authors for the orientation control of the drill machine. The desired orientation is realized through control pulses during specific roll instants. These pulses are generated through single pair of electromagnets mounted on the housing of the pointing device. Due to practical limitation of the system, there is an additional constraint on the actuating signal. The amplitude of the actuating signal is fixed and the Pulse width or duration of the pulse can vary. A discrete equivalent model of pointing device is also developed. A novel approach based on PEA is developed since the exact solution of discrete equivalent model under constraints was not possible. The simulations are included to compare proposed technique with the existing technique developed for similar systems. The performance is also shown under both nominal and parameter variations through Monte Carlo simulations.