Development of Hardware-in-the-loop Simulator for Spacecraft Attitude Control using thrusters

The ground-based spacecraft simulator is a useful tool to realize various space missions and satellite formation flying in the future. Also, the spacecraft simulator can be used to develop and verify new control laws required by modern spacecraft applications. In this research, therefore, Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulator which can be demonstrated the experimental validation of the theoretical results is designed and developed. The main components of the HIL simulator which we focused on are the thruster system to attitude control and automatic mass-balancing for elimination of gravity torques. To control the attitude of the spacecraft simulator, 8 thrusters which using the cold gas (N2) are aligned with roll, pitch and yaw axis. Also Linear actuators are applied to the HIL simulator for automatic mass balancing system to compensate for the center of mass offset from the center of rotation. Addition to the thruster control system and Linear actuators, the HIL simulator for spacecraft attitude control includes an embedded computer (Onboard PC) for simulator system control, Host PC for simulator health monitoring, command and post analysis, wireless adapter for wireless network, rate gyro sensor to measure 3-axis attitude of the simulator, inclinometer to measure horizontality and battery sets to independently supply power only for the simulator. Finally, we present some experimental results from the application of the controller on the spacecraft simulator.