Permanent Magnet Motor Design for Satellite Attitude Control with High Torque Density and Low Torque Ripple

This paper proposes a high-precision permanent magnet (PM) motor primarily used for the satellite attitude control. Considering aerospace applications, the dynamic response, weight and torque ripple are primarily concerns. To achieve the fast response and low ripple, a stator with slotless windings is designed to achieve the ripple free torque production. However, slotless windings contain visible leakage fluxes which might decrease the torque production. In this paper, several design methods are proposed to decrease leakage fluxes by concentrating the flux linkage under slotless topology. First, leakage fluxes caused by slotless windings are minimized through the radial-flux dual-rotor topology. This topology results in the flux linkage concentration in the air gap because two rotors are used separately for flux transmitter and receiver. It is concluded that the dual-rotor is well suited for a slotless windings motor to maximize the air gap flux linkage. Second, Halbach array magnets are chosen to realize the sinusoidal flux linkage distribution. Different array angles are analyzed to minimize the torque ripple. It is shown that the 22.5deg array angle results in the lowest torque ripple among three different Halbach magnets. More importantly, the average torque output is higher comparing to conventional radial magnet magnetization. Although several optimization methods have been developed on the motor geometric design, very few researches focus on the design of dual-rotor slotless windings and air gap length. This design approach further decreases leakage fluxes. In this paper, finite element analysis (FEA) is used for the satellite motor design. In addition, a motor prototype is built for experimental tests.