Design, Manufacturing and Test of a Three Degrees-of-Freedom Attitude Control Simulator for an Agile Micro-Satellite Based on Single Gimbal Control Moment Gyros

The Agile Satellite Attitude Control System Simulator (ASACSS) is a laboratory system designed for the purpose of developing and testing attitude control algorithms in a low-risk, low-cost environment. In this paper, the design and development of the ASACSS is described, including hardware and software. There are many papers that present a new mathematical technique or prove a new theory, but this study presents the design and development of a new experimental system. This simulator consists of four main components: 1) power supply system 2) on-board control system 3) supporting equipments and 4) monitoring computer. On-board control system includes a industrial computer, four single gimbal control moment gyros and a sensor for attitude determination. Supporting equipments include a platform for installing simulator subsystems, a semi-spherical air bearing and a pedestal. A high-speed wireless LAN connection enables remote command initiation, monitoring and data collection for post-experimental analysis. In this paper, The design and construction process of the simulator are described. More over some experimental results presented from the application of a simple PID attitude controller on the spacecraft simulator. Finally, experimental results are compared with those obtained from simulation.