Aalto-2 satellite attitude control system

The Attitude Control System for the Aalto-2 satellite was designed and verified if it meets the requirements of the QB50 project mission. Attitude control is achieved through the passive atmospheric drag torque stabilization and active control over magnetorquers. For the detumble phase, B dot control is used, and for nominal stabilization phase, PD, LQR and SDRE control methods were investigated and compared, through the computer simulations. Software algorithms for solving of Algebraic Matrix Riccati Equation (Schur decomposition and Kleinman) and system tasks were realized for the onboard computer and the overall system functionality was tested with the Hardware In the Loop method. LQR control method showed the best performance, though none of the controllers completely met the mission needs