Attitude control of a CubeSat in a circular orbit using magnetic actuators

Author

Oluwatosin, Ajayi Michael ; Hamam, Yskandar ; Djouani, Karim

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Tshwane Univ. of Technol., Tshwane, South Africa

fYear

2013

fDate

9-12 Sept. 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

9

Abstract

This paper deals with attitude tracking control of a spacecraft using magnetic actuators. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of magnetic actuators for the Attitude Control System (ACS) of a CubeSat in a low earth circular orbit. This investigation is achieved via a proposed control law (set point regulator) based on the well known (model independent) PD controller. To validate this objective, two (2) cases representing the attitude manoeuvre were considered using SCILAB application software. A numerical orbit propagator was used to mimic the said circular orbit. Simulation results are presented showing the performance of the proposed solution.

Keywords

PD control; artificial satellites; attitude control; control engineering computing; control system synthesis; magnetic actuators; ACS; CubeSat; SCILAB application software; attitude control system; attitude manoeuvre; attitude tracking control; circular orbit; control law; magnetic actuators; model independent PD controller; numerical orbit propagator; proportional-derivative controller; set point regulator; spacecraft; Angular velocity; Attitude control; Orbits; Quaternions; Satellites; Space vehicles; Torque;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

AFRICON, 2013

Conference_Location

Pointe-Aux-Piments

ISSN

2153-0025

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-5940-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AFRCON.2013.6757619

Filename

6757619