Development and analysis of a small satellite attitude determination and control system testbed

Abstract

Attitude Determination and Control Systems (ADCS) are critical to the operation of satellites that require attitude knowledge and/or attitude control to achieve mission success. Furthermore, ADCS systems only operate as designed in the reduced friction, micro-gravity environment of space. Simulating these characteristics of space in a laboratory environment in order to test individual ADCS components and integrated ADCS systems is an important but challenging step in verifying and validating a satellite's ADCS design. The purpose of this thesis is to design and develop an ADCS testbed capable of simulating the reduced fiction, micro-gravity environment of space within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Space Systems Laboratory. The ADCS testbed is based on a tabletop style, three degree of freedom, rotational air bearing, which uses four reaction wheels for attitude control and a series of sensors for attitude determination. The testbed includes all the equipment necessary to allow for closed loop testing of individual ADCS components and integrated ADCS systems in the simulated inertial environment of space. In addition to the physical ADCS testbed, a MATLAB Simulink based model of the ADCS testbed is developed to predict the performance of hardware components and software algorithms before the components and algorithms are integrated into the ADCS testbed. The final objective of this thesis is to validate the operation of the ADCS testbed and simulation to prepare the tool for use by satellite design teams.