Verification of Attitude Determination and Control Algorithms Using Air-Bearing Test Table

Abstract: A test platform is developed to provide experimental verification of attitude determination and control algorithms for a satellite. The testbed is used for the development and implementation of test cases including sensors, actuators, and algorithms. The sensor suite consists of magnetometers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes used for state estimation. Three reaction wheels are used on each axis as the primary attitude control actuator. The test setup consists of the main payload-carrying table, mass balancing blocks, adapters for equipment installation. In order to make the mass balance, coarse balancing blocks are placed on the four corners and fine ones are mounted on each principal axis. The platform has a wireless monitoring system and a power distribution unit for online analysis. A computer is used to manage attitude determination and control tasks in a distributed control mechanism. After testing the maneuverability of the control system, various scenarios are evaluated and analyzed for magnetometer calibration and for satellite attitude estimation using traditional and nontraditional kalman type filters.