Attitude Stabilization For Cubesat

This book explores CubeSat technology, and develops a nonlinear mathematical model of a spacecraft with the assumption that the satellite is a rigid body. It places emphasis on the CubeSat subsystem, orbit dynamics and perturbations, the satellite attitude dynamic and modeling, and components of attitude determination and the control subsystem. The book focuses on the attitude stabilization methods of spacecraft, and presents gravity gradient stabilization, aerodynamic stabilization, and permanent magnets stabilization as passive stabilization methods, and spin stabilization and three axis stabilization as active stabilization methods. It also discusses the need to develop a control system design, and describes the design of three controller configurations, namely the Proportional–Integral–Derivative Controller (PID), the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), and the Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) and how they can be used to design the attitude control of CubeSat three-axis stabilization. Furthermore, it presents the design of a suitable attitude stabilization system by combining gravity gradient stabilization with magnetic torquing, and the design of magnetic coils which can be added in order to improve the accuracy of attitude stabilization. The book then investigates, simulates, and compares possible controller configurations that can be used to control the currents of magnetic coils when magnetic coils behave as the actuator of the system.

CubeSats have become popular among universities, research organizations, and government agencies due to their low cost, small size, and light weight. Their standardized configurations further reduce the development time and ensure more frequent launch opportunities. Early cubesat missions focused on hardware validation and simple communication missions, with little requirement for pointing accuracy. Most of these used magnetic torque rods or coils for attitude stabilization. However, the intrinsic problems associated with magnetic torque systems, such as the lack of three-axis control and low pointing accuracy, make them unsuitable for more advanced missions such as detailed imaging and on-orbit inspection. Three-axis control in a cubesat can be achieved by combining magnetic torque coils with other devices such as thrusters, but the lifetime is limited by the fuel source onboard. To maximize the mission lifetime, a fast attitude control management algorithm that could optimally manage the usage of the magnetic and thruster torques is desirable. Therefore, a recently developed method, the B-Spline-augmented virtual motion camouflage, is presented in this defense to solve the problem. This approach provides results which are very close to those obtained through other popular nonlinear constrained optimal control methods with a significantly reduced computational time. Simulation results are presented to validate the capabilities of the method in this application.

Roger D. Werking Head, Attitude Determination and Control Section National Aeronautics and Space Administration/ Goddard Space Flight Center Extensiye work has been done for many years in the areas of attitude determination, attitude prediction, and attitude control. During this time, it has been difficult to obtain reference material that provided a comprehensive overview of attitude support activities. This lack of reference material has made it difficult for those not intimately involved in attitude functions to become acquainted with the ideas and activities which are essential to understanding the various aspects of spacecraft attitude support. As a result, I felt the need for a document which could be used by a variety of persons to obtain an understanding of the work which has been done in support of spacecraft attitude objectives. It is believed that this book, prepared by the Computer Sciences Corporation under the able direction of Dr. James Wertz, provides this type of reference. This book can serve as a reference for individuals involved in mission planning, attitude determination, and attitude dynamics; an introductory textbook for stu dents and professionals starting in this field; an information source for experimen ters or others involved in spacecraft-related work who need information on spacecraft orientation and how it is determined, but who have neither the time nor the resources to pursue the varied literature on this subject; and a tool for encouraging those who could expand this discipline to do so, because much remains to be done to satisfy future needs.

Guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) systems are commonly found in vehicles, whether they be spacecraft, aircraft, seacraft or landcraft. These systems are designed to bring the vehicle to its desired position and/or orientation by sensing pose and making the necessary adjustments to onboard devices. With regard to satellites, GNC systems are divided into two segments: orbit control, which is concerned with the spacecraft's position, and attitude control, which is concerned with the spacecraft's orientation. The focus of this thesis is to develop the attitude control system of a CubeSat nanosatellite being designed for the University of Prince Edward Island's SpudNik-1 mission. The objective of this study was to progress the design of the attitude control system (ACS) from its conceptual design phase to a state where it is ready for assembly, integration, and testing. To accomplish this, the engineering design process was applied. Accordingly, the fundamentals of attitude control were first reviewed in literature. Then, the system-level requirements were evaluated and the current design's ability to meet them was assessed. After doing so, the necessary alterations were made to the conceptual design, such that it would meet the requirements, and the various methods of requirement verification were defined to verify that this is the case during the assembly, integration, and testing phase. Once the system-level design had been established, this process was repeated for the subsystem- and unit-level designs. In addition to contributing the detailed design of an attitude control system to the Spudnik-1 team, this work can also serve as a reference for other teams working toward space missions that require the use of an ACS by providing a comprehensive perspective that focuses on the identification, integration, and implementation of the major elements of an attitude control system. It not only offers detailed information on the definition, measurement, modeling, estimation, and control of a spacecraft's attitude, but also identifies: the connections between these concepts; the hardware used to implement the concepts in a real-world application; and the various considerations that should be taken during this implementation. Aside from familiarizing the reader with the methodology behind an ACS system, this work also describes the procedure that was used to develop the attitude control subsystem of the SpudNik-1 CubeSat. It details: how the requirements of the attitude control subsystem were identified from the spacecraft's mission and the corresponding system requirements; how the major components and concepts of the ACS are identified from the subsystem requirements, and integrated through the subsystem architecture; how the unit-level requirements are identified based on the subsystem-level design; and how the implementation of the various components and concepts is dependent on the unit level requirements. While a good deal of the design is standard with regard to CubeSats and other aerospace projects, the original aspects would relate to the in-house design of the reaction wheels and fine sun sensors. Being as there are a wide selection of ACS components available on the market, it is most common for CubeSat projects to procure their hardware. Although the lack of flight heritage did pose additional risk to the mission in comparison to using commercial equipment, the in-house design allowed the components to be both tailored to the mission and produced at a fraction of the cost. If the designs manage to gain flight heritage on-board of the SpudNik-1 CubeSat, then this work will provide readers with standard frameworks which will allow them to reap the same benefits, but at a lower level of risk.

This book explores topics that are central to the field of spacecraft attitude determination and control. The authors provide rigorous theoretical derivations of significant algorithms accompanied by a generous amount of qualitative discussions of the subject matter. The book documents the development of the important concepts and methods in a manner accessible to practicing engineers, graduate-level engineering students and applied mathematicians. It includes detailed examples from actual mission designs to help ease the transition from theory to practice and also provides prototype algorithms that are readily available on the author’s website. Subject matter includes both theoretical derivations and practical implementation of spacecraft attitude determination and control systems. It provides detailed derivations for attitude kinematics and dynamics and provides detailed description of the most widely used attitude parameterization, the quaternion. This title also provides a thorough treatise of attitude dynamics including Jacobian elliptical functions. It is the first known book to provide detailed derivations and explanations of state attitude determination and gives readers real-world examples from actual working spacecraft missions. The subject matter is chosen to fill the void of existing textbooks and treatises, especially in state and dynamics attitude determination. MATLAB code of all examples will be provided through an external website.

Spacecraft formation flight has been identified as a critical enabling technology for achieving many scientific, commercial, and military objectives. One of the primary challenges of a formation flight mission is the control of the relative motion between spacecraft. Before any flagship missions will launch, technology development missions will be required to demonstrate the utility and functionality of formation flying systems. This thesis describes the complete attitude and formation control design for the MotherCube formation flight technology demonstration mission in LEO. A model of the spacecraft's sensors and actuators is developed and analyzed. Using curvilinear orbit theory, a simple LQR control law is used to generate a set of desired relative accelerations for formation control. A newly developed two-tier numerical allocation scheme is used alongside an independent PD attitude control law to generate a set of actuator commands which provides 3-axis attitude stabilization as well as formation control with guaranteed feasibility of actuator commands. An Extended Kalman Filter was developed to estimate the system attitude and angular rate from sensor measurements. To test these algorithms, a simulation environment was developed. This environment includes realistic models of space environment and the major perturbation effects which a LEO spacecraft formation would encounter. In order to improve the fidelity, a new intermediate-accuracy method for computing attitude-dependent aerodynamic and solar effects was also developed. Finally, results from the simulation are used numerically validate the dual-allocator approach, assess the performance of the control laws and provide system level metrics such as fuel use and required maneuver time.

The AOCS is the system needed in order to know the orientation of our space vehicle and be able to control it so it is possible to reach the desired pointing and given this, began with the execution of scientific missions. In the case of this project the AOCS system will be only consists of a gravity boom, so the attitude control of this 3U CubeSat will be passive trough the gravity gradient torque. For the simulations that take place in this study, the software MATLAB will be used as a vehicle to analyse the AOCS system. This same software will allow to determine the inertia and other characteristics of the 3U Cubesat, which will be fundamental to the subsequent calculations in order to obtain the gravity boom influence in the spacecraft stabilization. This document will explain the physics behind the spacecraft model, the calculations needed in order to obtain its inertia values and also the equations needed to model the space environment and the forces that are needed for the chosen analysis. Also the algorithms designed in MatLab will be presented in form of Annex, being the calculations for the plots, inertia, angular deviations, ... The results have the goal of determining if the use of the gravity boom is enough to control the attitude of the Cubesat, so diverse configurations for the satellite will be simulated, with variations on the mass of the gravity boom and the length of the cable that links it with the CubeSat body. As it shows in the conclusion section, the configuration where mgb= 1 kg and lcb= 2.5 m seems to meets the requirements of pointing for medium/low accuracy, but if the use of some sensor was to be considered (such as sun sensor or star trackers), missions with the need for a high accuracy system could be feasible as the nadir pointing obtained has a very low angular deviation. However, even though the results for this values are successful, any increase in both variables characterstics lead to the instability of the CubeSat and can not be considered in order to reduce the angular deviation for both yaw and pitch.

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This thesis investigates a new concept for the flexible design and verification of an ADCS for a nanosatellite platform. In order to investigate guidelines for the design of a flexible ADCS, observations of the satellite market and missions are recorded. Following these observations, the author formulates design criteria which serve as a reference for the conceptual design of the flexible ADCS. The research of the thesis was carried out during the development of TU Berlin's nanosatellite platform TUBiX20 and its first two missions, TechnoSat and TUBIN. TUBiX20 targets modularity, reuse and dependability as main design goals. Based on the analysis of design criteria for a flexible ADCS, these key design considerations for the TUBiX20 platform were continued for the investigations carried out in this thesis. The resulting concept implements the ADCS as a distributed system of devices complemented by a hardware-independent core application for state determination and control. Drawing on the technique of component-based software engineering, the system is partitioned into self-contained modules which implement unified interfaces. These interfaces specify the state quantity of an input or output but also its unit and coordinate system, complemented by a mathematical symbol for unambiguous documentation. The design and verification process for the TUBiX20 ADCS was also elaborated during the course of this research. The approach targets the gradual development of the subsystem from a purely virtual satellite within a closed-loop simulation to the verification of the fully integrated system on an air-bearing testbed. Finally, the concurrent realization of the investigated concept within the TechnoSat and TUBIN missions is discussed. Starting with the individual ADCS requirements, the scalability of the approach is demonstrated in three stages: from a coarse, but cost- and energy-efficient configuration to realize a technology demonstration mission with moderate requirements (TechnoSat) to a high-performance configuration to support Earth observation missions (TUBIN). Diese Dissertation untersucht ein neues Konzept zur flexiblen Entwicklung und Verifikation eines Lageregelungssystems für eine Nanosatellitenplattform. Als Grundlage für die Erarbeitung eines Leitfadens für die Entwicklung werden zunächst Beobachtung des Satellitenmarkts sowie konkreter Missionen zusammengetragen. Darauf aufbauend formuliert der Autor Entwurfskriterien für die Konzipierung eines flexiblen Lageregelungssystems. Die Dissertation wurde im Rahmen der Entwicklung der TUBiX20 Nanosatellitenplattform und ihrer ersten beiden Missionen, TechnoSat und TUBIN, an der TU Berlin durchgeführt. TUBiX20 verfolgt Modularität, Wiederverwendung und Zuverlässigkeit als Entwicklungsziele. Diese werden unter der Verwendung der vom Autor hergeleiteten Entwurfskriterien in dieser Arbeit im Kontext des Lageregelungssystems verfeinert. Das resultierende Konzept setzt dieses als verteiltes System von Geräten und einem hardware-unabhängigen Software-Kern um. Der Software-Entwurfstechnik Component-based software engineering folgend ist das System in unabhängige Module unterteilt, welche wiederum einheitliche Schnittstellen implementieren. Diese Schnittstellen spezifizieren die Zustandsgrößen für die Ein- und Ausgänge der Module inklusive Einheit, Koordinatensystem und mathematischem Symbol für eine eindeutige Darstellung. Der Entwurfs- und Verifikationsprozess für das TUBiX20 Lageregelungssystem wurde vom Autor im Rahmen der Arbeit untersucht. Hier verfolgt der Ansatz einen schrittweisen übergang von einem virtuellen Satelliten als Simulationsmodell bis hin zur Verifikation des integrierten Systems auf einem Lageregelungsteststand. Abschließend diskutiert die Arbeit die Realisierung des untersuchten Konzepts im Rahmen der Missionen TechnoSat und TUBIN. Beginnend mit den jeweiligen Anforderungen wird die Skalierbarkeit des Ansatzes in drei Stufen demonstriert: von einer groben, aber kosten- und energieeffizienten Konfiguration für eine Technologieerprobungsmission mit moderaten Anforderungen (TechnoSat) bis hin zu einer Konfiguration für hochgenaue Lageregelung als Basis für Erdbeobachtungsmissionen (TUBIN).