Teaching

Graduate Courses

The courses created by Prof. Oguri are indicated by the superscript "*".

AAE 590: Applied Control in Astronautics*

Purdue University (Spring 2023, Spring 2024) -- the flyer is here

Dynamical systems considered in the context of spaceflight are largely different from those of ground-based systems. The objective of this course is to introduce students to the theoretical and practical foundations of control techniques with an emphasis on its application to dynamical systems in astronautics, such as spacecraft attitude, orbit, and relative motions.

Topics:

Topics covered in this course include:

  • review of orbital mechanics and linear systems;
  • optimal control via Pontryagin’s minimum principle for space trajectory optimization;
  • nonlinear feedback control via Lyapunov stability for spacecraft orbit control;
  • optimization-based control via convex programming for space trajectory control & optimization;
  • stochastic process & performance evaluation for controlled space systems under uncertainty.

Each topic consists of two parts: theory and its space applications.

 

Learning Objectives:

Through this course, students will be able to

  • acquire fundamental knowledge about control techniques for dynamical systems in astronautics;
  • apply the learned theories to design controllers for a range of spaceflight problems;
  • develop original computation software using a programming language to numerically simulate the spacecraft motion under control;
  • assess the controller performance and resulting dynamical properties analytically and numerically;
  • present and communicate their technical approaches to problems, their analysis/numerical results, and their interpretation in written and presentation formats.

 

Final Project:

In the final project, students are encouraged to explore spaceflight problems of their interest and apply the learned control theories and tools to the problems.

Below are some examples of project results from Spring 2023, organized by the control approaches employed (extracted fom the final project technical reports):

 

Projects based on optimal control via Pontryagin's minimum principle

 

Projects based on nonlinear feedback control via Lyapunov's stability theorem

 

Projects based on trajectory optimization via (sequential) convex programming

 

 

Undergraduate Courses

AAE 440/590: Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics

Purdue University (Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023)

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of spacecraft attitude dynamics, including various attitude representations, spacecraft rigid body kinematics and dynamics, attitude equations of motion, and analysis of their stability with analytical and numerical approaches.

Learning objectives:

Through this course, students will be able to

  • acquire fundamental knowledge about rigid body kinematics and dynamics;
  • formulate equations of motion to mathematically describe spacecraft attitude motion in space;
  • analyze the attitude motion’s stability and other characteristics based on the equations of motion;
  • develop original computing scripts using a programming language to numerically simulate the attitude motion;
  • present and communicate their technical approaches to given problems, their analysis/numerical results, and their interpretation in a written format.