Development of Attitude Determination and Control System for Skoltech-F CubeSat

The Attitude Determination and Control system (ADCS) of a satellite is vital for the success or failure of its mission. It employs a variety of sensors and actuators. In order to serve its purpose, the satellite has to be pointed in a particular direction, for which the attitude control of the satellite is of fundamental consideration. For this reason, determining the satellite’s attitude orientation becomes necessary. This model is designed for part of the subsystem design of the Skoltech-F CubeSat. In this paper, satellite’s attitude determination is achieved through a 3-axis magnetometer and sun sensors. The sensor measurements are used in the Tri-Axial Attitude Determination (TRIAD) method to initialize the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) by estimating the quaternions. The EKF then uses these sensor measurements and linearized satellite attitude motion equations to estimate the state vector. Lastly, reaction wheel control is based upon the Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller. The estimated state vector is used to calculate the reaction wheel control torque as well as the external disturbance torques. The result of this research is important in understanding Skoltech-F’s attitude behavior under different conditions. It provides useful insights into the design and implementation of ADCS for CubeSats and other small satellite missions.