We continue our seminar series on Tuesday, Dec. 3rd at 13.00
On site: Salón de Grados (Leganés)
For this event in the Aerospace PhD Seminar Series, we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Behrad Vatankhahghadim, Visiting Professor at UC3M.
The event took place in the Salón de Grados on Tuesday, December 3rd at 13:00 pm and was streamed (Online).
Behrad Vatankhahghadim obtained his PhD in Aerospace Science and Engineering in 2021 at the University of Toronto in Canada, where he had previously received the MASc in Aerospace Science and Engineering and the BASc in Engineering Science degrees in 2016 and 2014, respectively. He was a casual employee at the Canadian Space Agency in 2018, working on deorbiting applications of electrodynamic tethers. After his doctoral studies, he joined the University of Toronto Space Flight Laboratory as a research associate in guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) of real microsatellite missions. He subsequently moved to Italy for a 2-year postdoctoral project at the Politecnico di Milano, partly funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Government of Canada. He is now based in Spain as of April 2024, having joined the Aerospace Engineering Department of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid as a visiting professor. His current research interests are in the domain of spacecraft dynamics and control: hybrid systems, electrodynamic tethers, solar sails, astrodynamics and GNC. He is actively involved in the E.T.PACK-F and E.T.COMPACT projects, and offers technical and supervisory support to ST3LLARsat1 “BOIRA” as well.
“Hybrid Spacecraft Dynamics and Control: The curious incident of the cat and spaghetti in the Space-Time”
Abstract:
This seminar will focus on some of the presenter’s past, current, and planned research activities on spacecraft dynamics and control—specifically on systems that are, in one way or another, “hybrid”. The presentation will consist of two main parts:
(1) Attitude dynamics and control of multibody spacecraft by changing their shape: internal control torques on actuated appendages—that preserve the system’s angular momentum—are considered for enabling overall rotational motion in the absence of any external torques. Then, such an internal mechanism is extended to work in tandem with external attitude-dependent torques from the space environment. The concepts of shape space, configuration space, and geometric phases are introduced, and a pathway is presented for their extension concepts to both generic spacecraft and specific scenarios requiring a hybrid approach.
(2) Dynamics and control of deployable space systems: examples include solar sails deployed by linear extension of their support booms, and electrodynamic tether systems deployed by linear separation of their modules or centrifugal forces from spinning. Such deployable systems are typically hybrid in the sense of their structural interconnections, involving coupled dynamics between tethers, sails, and support booms—modelled as flexible strings, membranes, and beams, respectively. The correlation of this topic to the previous one on shape-changing spacecraft will also be explored, especially considering the high degree of coupling between the attitude and orbital dynamics of solar sails and electrodynamic tethers.
The seminar begin at 13:00 pm and will take place in the Salón de Grados, Leganés.
No previous registration is required.
PhD in Aerospace Engineering UC3M 