Attitude determination experiment for the european student earth orbiter (ESEO) mission

Martijn Geers, Duarte Rondao, Manuel Salvoldi, Daniel Choukroun

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper describes an attitude determination experiment to be implemented on-board the ESEO satellite: An ESA sponsored LEO microsatellite to be launched in 2015 and currently under critical design review. The satellite attitude sensing suite include magnetometers (MGM), an Earth sensor (EVS), and a system of Sun sensors (SVS), each charactrized by a subdegree accuracy. The experiment will consists in running four algorithms that belong to the realms of the q-method and Kalman filtering, and implement varying sizes of state vectors for quaternion, angular velocity, and sensors' biases estimation. The sensors are activated by pairs: MGM-SVS in daylight and MGM-EVS at night. Sample runs comparatively illustrate the achievable performances - About 0.05 degree for all filters - with different dispersions and convergence times. Standard deviations plots clearly illustrate the changing observability of the parameters. A hardware testing campaign was conducted by running the algorithms on a microprocessor that is identical to the flight model. Tests successfully showed matching to numerical precision between the microprocessor-run C-code and the computer-run Matlab code. Other tests were performed to verify the correct management of telelcommand/telemetry/housekeeping data for initialization and activation of the various filters. Additional tests successfully verified the requirement on the maximum run time per cycle - 70 ms - Allocated by the on-board computer for the attitude determination experiment.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication55th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences 2015
PublisherTechnion – Israel Institute of Technology
Pages677-705
Number of pages29
ISBN (Electronic)9781510802315
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2015
Event55th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences 2015 - Tel-Aviv and Haifa, Israel
Duration: 25 Feb 201526 Feb 2015

Publication series

Name55th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences 2015
Volume1

Conference

Conference55th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences 2015
Country/TerritoryIsrael
CityTel-Aviv and Haifa
Period25/02/1526/02/15

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Space and Planetary Science

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