Mechatronic design, dynamic modeling and results of a satellite flight simulator for experimental validation of satellite attitude determination and control schemes in 3-axis

This paper describes the integration and implementation of a satellite flight simulator based on an air bearing system, which was designed and instrumented in our laboratory to evaluate and to perform research in the field of Attitude Determination and Control Systems for satellites, using the hardware-in-the-loop technique. The satellite flight simulator considers two main blocks: an instrumented mobile platform and an external computer executing costume-made Matlab^® software. The first block is an air bearing system containing an FPGA based on-board computer with capabilities to integrate digital architectures for data acquisition from inertial navigation sensors, control of actuators and communications data handling. The second block is an external personal computer, which runs in parallel Matlab^® based algorithms for attitude determination and control. Both blocks are linked by means of radio modems. The paper also presents the analysis of the satellite flight simulator dynamics in order to obtain its movement equation which allows a better understanding of the satellite flight simulator behavior. In addition, the paper shows experimental results about the automated tracking of the satellite flight simulator based a virtual reality model developed in Matlab^®. It also depicts two different versions of FPGA based on-board computers developed in-house to integrate embedded and polymorphic digital architectures for spacecrafts applications. Finally, the paper shows successful experimental results for an attitude control test using the satellite flight simulator based on a linear control law.