Conceptual design of a low-cost real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulator for satellite attitude control system

Integration of flight hardware with real-time simulation increases satellite attitude control system (ACS) reliability by providing greater test coverage through end-to-end testing in a realistic test environment. In this paper, a compound hardware and software simulator has been designed for evaluation and testing of the spacecraft ACS, placing emphasis on the real-time hardware-in-loop (RTHIL) architecture. The environment comprises both real-time control and data acquisition applications on a network of ACS hardware, the MATLAB Real-Time Workshop, and a PCI device to join the hardware and software units. Moreover, a graphical 3D simulator has been designed, enabling the designers and researchers to intuitively analyze the quality of spacecraft maneuvers. Finally, an ad hoc attitude-stabilizing control law for magnetic actuated satellites has been proposed and implemented in the proposed environment and the efficiency, correctness, and robustness of this control law have been verified using RTHIL simulation results.