Development and structure of multi-DOF spherical induction motor

The paper reports on the development of a spherical induction actuator with multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs). Based on the previous research, the paper presents the concept design of the multi-DOF spherical induction motor which is applied for the attitude control of microsatellites. The structure and working principle are illustrated in detail, including the designs of the stator and rotor. The rotor can rotate around any axis by the combination of the stators of three DOFs. In order to analyze the three-dimensional distribution of electromagnetic field, a three-dimensional model is built using finite-element analysis tool. Based on the numerical analysis, the influence of different parameters on output torque is also obtained. Moreover, the analyzed results can provide great benefits for the structure optimization.