Reliable Control of Ship-Mounted Satellite Tracking Antenna

Motorized antenna is a key element in overseas satellite telecommunication. The control system directs the on-board antenna toward a chosen satellite while the high sea waves disturb the antenna. Certain faults (communication system malfunction or signal blocking) cause interruption in the communication connection resulting in loss of the tracking functionality, and instability of the antenna. In this brief, a fault tolerant control (FTC) system is proposed for the satellite tracking antenna. The FTC system maintains the tracking functionality by employing proper control strategy. A robust fault diagnosis system is designed to supervise the FTC system. The employed fault diagnosis solution is able to estimate the faults for a class of nonlinear systems acting under external disturbances. Effectiveness of the method is verified through implementation and test on an antenna system.