Damping mode of satellite angular velocity using magnetic actuators in hardware/software in the loop

In this paper, damping mode of a satellite attitude control is designed and implemented using magnetic actuators in software /hardware-in-the-loop testbed. To do this, the equivalent of Earth’s magnetic field is designed using Helmholtz coil, frictionless is made by air-bearing, and algorithms are developed on designed control board. By measuring the Earth’s magnetic field, actuator commands are generated by the damping algorithm then braking torque is produced. Some applied restrictions and special requirements such as non-simultaneous operation between magnetic sensor and magnetic actuators, air-bearing friction, initial angular velocity are considered. By identifying the air-bearing frictional model, the results are compared in software/hardware-in-the-loop. The compared results show that the ability of the designed system to perform damping mode.