High quality multi-disciplinary integrated models are needed for complex opto-mechanical spacecraft such as SIM and TPF in order to predict the system's on-orbit behavior. One major activity in early design is to examine the system's behavior over multiple configurations using an integrated model. A three step procedure for model tuning is outlined that consists of (1) applying engineering insight to the model so that all physical systems are present in the model, (2) using optimization to automatically update system parameters that are uncertain in the model, and (3) evaluating the model at several configurations using the updated parameters. The key contribution of this work is the systematic checking of the validity of the updated parameters by evaluating, both in the model and the experiment, the system at different configurations (step three). It is hypothesized that if the simulation model and experimental data of the additional configurations match well then the tuned system parameters were indeed updated in a way that physically represents the system. This three step process is applied to a testbed at the MIT Space System Laboratory.

Date Published: 16 September 2004
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 5497, Modeling and Systems Engineering for Astronomy, (16 September 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.551436

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5497:
Modeling and Systems Engineering for Astronomy
Simon C. Craig; Martin J. Cullum, Editor(s)