Development of an Autonomous Redundant Attitude Determination System for Cubesats

Abstract

This work deals with the problem of the design of an autonomous redundant system for the attitude determination of nanosatellites. The system consists of a circuit board equipped with three microcontrollers, a magnetic field sensor in three axes, and complementary commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) components and connectors to provide data signal exchange the vehicle on-board computer. The main goal of this system, named SDATF (of the acronym in Portuguese Sistema de Determinação de Atitude com Tolerância a Falhas), is to provide autonomously the vehicle attitude from the information collected from the onboard computer (OBC) and the magnetometer. The adopted attitude determination algorithm is based on the well-known QUEST method, and the goal of this system is to get accurate attitude computations to low-orbit CubeSat satellites using COTS electronic components, and to provide highly reliable data and high availability levels using fault tolerance tools to avoid the harmful consequences of spatial radiation and its faults known as single event upsets (SEU). The article presents the general design of the fault-tolerant systems and experimental tests using bit flip injection methodology.

Low-Cost Orientation Determination System for CubeSat Based Solely on Solar and Magnetic Sensors

“…The technology used in the development of CubeSat orientation sensors includes solar and magnetic sensors [ 1 , 2 ]. This information is necessary for spacecraft orientation [ 3 , 4 ], control, and collecting accurate scientific data [ 5 ]. The purpose of the solar sensor is to determine the coordinates of the satellite–Sun vector [ 6 , 7 ] in the reference frame associated with the satellite.…”