Mechatronics Architecture of Smartphone-Based Spacecraft ADCS using VSCMG Actuators

Hardware and software architecture of a novel spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) based on smartphones using Variable Speed Control Moment Gyroscope (VSCMG) as actuator is proposed here. A spacecraft ground simulator testbed for Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) attitude estimation and control with VSCMG is also described. The sensor breakouts with independent micro-controller units are used in the conventional ADCS units, which are replaced by a single integrated off-the-shelf smartphone. On-board sensing, data acquisition, data uplink/downlink, state estimation and real-time feedback control objectives can be performed using this novel spacecraft ADCS. The attitude control and attitude determination (estimation) schemes have appeared in prior publications, but are presented in brief here. Experimental results from running the attitude estimation (filtering) scheme with the “onboard” sensors of the smartphone in the HIL simulator are given. These results, obtained in the Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation and Control Laboratory at NMSU, demonstrate the excellent performance of this estimation scheme with the noisy raw data from the smartphone sensors.