Simulator Development of an Attitude Determination and Control Subsystem of an Earth Observation Satellite

The proposed paper presents a simulator development of an attitude determination and control subsystem (ADCS) of an Earth observation satellite (EOS). Attitude is the orientation of the satellite in space and the ADCS is one of the crucial subsystem of an EOS. The envisaged simulator incorporates the magnetometer as a sensor and Torquer rod as an actuator devise. The IGRF model is used as reference for the geo-magnetic field. An orbit propagator is also modelled in-order to get the position of the satellite at any time for the determination of geo-magnetic field. The Kalman filter (KF) is used for estimation while the linear control theory is used as the control scheme. The disturbance torques like gravity gradient torque and aerodynamics torques are also incorporated in the simulator. An attitude propagator is also introduced for the simulation purposes. The simulator is developed in Matlab/SIMULINK environment. The results are quite promising and this can be used for any LEO micro satellite.