Attitude determination and control system of the uruguayan cubesat, AntelSat

This paper discusses the design and development of an Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) for the first Uruguayan nanosatellite, AntelSat, which is being built at UdelaR University in Uruguay. The satellite consists of a two-unit (2U) Cubesat, which implies that the ADCS is designed under tight mass, size and energy constraints. In addition, student satellites usually have limited sensing, computational and communication capabilities, motivating the need for autonomous and computationally efficient algorithms. Under these strict restraints, developing an effective attitude control system poses a difficult challenge. For the attitude determination section, data available from sensors is taken as inputs for the computation of an optimal quaternion estimator. Attitude control is based on magnetic actuation with magnetorquers being commanded with pulse width modulation. The selection of hardware and algorithms is addressed, observing the system requirements and restrictions, previous background as well as theoretical and practical considerations.