Stanford Ph.D. Theses Related to the Drag-Free Satellite

With the exception of myself, this is a list of the theses of my Ph.D. students. They all made major contributions to Drag-Free and related technologies. Two are now Stanford professors.

Bill Davis was the first to propose the single-axis Drag-Free Satellite.

Ken Lorell's thesis results are being used in the GP-B satellite to accurately align its principal axes of inertia with the quartz gyro-housing axis while on orbit.

The gyro-rotor theses were for the development of the Unsupported Gyroscope. The work on USG rotors is relevant today because of the possibility that LISA might use spherical proof masses and because of the remote chance that a high-accuracy Relativity-Gyro experiment might still be flown.

Robert Plank's thesis is included in this list because it was so important and because it was the foundation of Parkinson's, McKinley's and Blanchard's theses. He was an officer in the USAF, and as a result did not have enough time to complete the Ph.D. degree program. The relevance of Plank's, Parkinson's, McKinley's, and Blanchard's work to the use of a spherical proof mass in LISA is summarized in the LISA3 Golm paper (PDF), and their relevance to the Relativity Gyro is summarized in Appendix D of the PRD paper (PDF).

At the pinnacle of this effort is Professor Robert H. Cannon, Jr. of Stanford who was my thesis advisor and who founded and supported the Guidance and Control Laboratory at Stanford and later the Robotics Laboratory.

Thesis List

SUDAER stands for Stanford University Department of Aeronautical Engineering Report, and SUDAAR stands for Stanford University Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Report. Both are available from the Stanford Engineering Library. Ph.D. theses are also available from University Microfilms.

Benjamin Lange, The Control and Use of Drag-Free Satellites, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAER 194, June, 1964.

Robert Victor Plank, Optical Flat Placement on Almost Spherical Gyro Rotors, Engineer's Thesis, Stanford University, March, 1966. This thesis reports on the development of the joy-stick active damper and on double illumination as a method of precision determination of the polhode motion of the spin axis in a spherical gyro rotor.

Bradford Parkinson, The Active Damping of Free-Rotor Gyroscopes, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 260, March, 1966. Brad Parkinson is now Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford and is much more famous for his work on the Global Positioning System (GPS).

William Richard Davis, Control of the Relative Motion between Satellites in Neighboring Elliptic Orbits, Ph.D. Thesis, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company Report 6-76-66-12, May, 1966. This thesis contains the first description and analysis of a single-axis Drag-Free satellite.

Alan W. Fleming, Use of the Properties of Frequency Symmetry and Complex Symmetry in the Control of Linear Dynamical Systems, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 266, May, 1966. Fleming's work was in the control of spinning Drag-Free satellites which is important for high orbit accuracy.

Don McNeal, Neighboring Optimal Control of Nonlinear Systems Using Bounded Control, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 311, May, 1967. This thesis looks at minimizing fuel consumption in Drag-Free control limit cycles.

Howard L. McKinley, Jr., The Stability and Control of the Principal Axis of Inertia of Almost Spherical Bodies, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 325, February, 1968. Laser machining was used in this research; perhaps for the first time.

Bhaskarpillai Gopinath, On the Identification and Control of Linear Systems, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 351, May, 1967. Gopinath developed a new way to estimate unmeasured states in control systems.

J. David Powell, Control of a Spinning Drag-Free Satellite With an Application to Estimation Theory, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 402, May, 1970. This thesis reported research on the flat-table air-bearing simulator which was used in Drag-Free-Satellite control research and later in Professor Robert H. Cannon's Robotics Laboratory. David Powell is now Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford.

Srinivas N. Mohan, Orbital Perturbations Due to Attitude Libration of an Arbitrary Rigid Body Moving in a Central Newtonian Field, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 410, August 1970. This thesis answers the question whether attitude librations would disturb Drag-Free operation, and in particular it investigates the non-linear problem of the effect of orbit eccentricity on the pitch oscillations of a gravity-gradient stabilized satellite.

Kenneth R. Lorell,Precision Attitude Control of Symmetric Spinning Bodies, Ph. Thesis, SUDAAR 422, April, 1971. Ken Lorell constructed a laboratory demonstration of an active mass/inertia-trim system to accurately align the principal axis of inertia of a spinning satellite dynamically (i.e. on orbit). This system will fly on the GP-B satellite. He also designed and constructed the Autocollimator which was used by McKinley and Blanchard in the precision optical-flat placement studies. The mass/inertia-trim system will also be important for a high-accuracy Equivalence-Principle experiment using DC Cancellation.

William N. Blanchard, The Readout-Axis Stability of Elastic, Nearly Spherical Gyro Rotors, Ph.D. Thesis, SUDAAR 431, September, 1971. This thesis reports on highly accurate laboratory measurements of optical-flat placement on spherical gyro rotors.