| This thesis has the objective of creating a reaction wheel based attitude control system for a 3U CubeSat. Conforming to the 3U CubeSat form factor, at least half of the 3U design will be available for the payload, leaving the other half for the flight hardware and electronics. The Main Control System (main board) was designed as a universal autopilot with fully adaptable hardware, making it possible to rapidly prototype control systems for a wide variety of platform. Since the Attitude Estimation and Control System (AECS) project is still in the prototyping stages, the main aboard was the ideal hardware platform to design the AECS project around. This project aims to establish a functional prototype that can be used as a building block to a university grade reaction wheel based attitude control system. A few commercial reaction wheel based systems are available on the market. However, they limit the user to design around their attitude control algorithms when in reality it is more efficient to design the control system around the payload. It is believed that in order to advance the field of CubeSats, a more precise actuation system is required, hence the need for a reaction wheel based attitude control system. This allows the developer to add and remove hardware as designated by the mission objectives. Use of reaction wheels provides quicker and more accurate actuation enabling CubeSats to perform more complex tasks. The use of reaction wheels allows the platform to better handle disturbances. The thesis demonstrates a fully integrated system with (1) accurate attitude estimation and (2) control of a single reaction wheel to manipulate the yaw orientation of the CubeSat mockup. It is shown that the system conforms to the 1.5U size constraints and operates within the average power absorption capacity of a 3U CubeSat solar array. |
