• Electromagnetic Torquers

◦ Lead the design of a series of print circuit boards (PCB) to perform small satellite attitude determination from a single board.

▪ The schedule and tasks were managed to develop and to test the hardware.

▪ Different environmental tests were planned to increase the TRL of the PCB boards.

◦ Write the algorithms to interface the IMU and GPS systems in the same board called the Modular Attitude Determination System (MADS) Board.

◦ Test the system performance of the magnetic torquers.

▪ The test is performed to understand the power consumption due to the control board commands.

◦ Use the torque information as part of the simulation developed for small satellites.

▪ The data is integrated into the simulations to understand the torque capability to keep the

satellite rate and orientation within the expected requ

◦ Write the embedded algorithms to interface IMU, magnetometers, sun sensors, and GPS systems into a single board producing the navigation algorithm.

▪ The algorithms were developed in MATLAB using a known software interface.

▪ The algorithm ere generated and integrated in the flight computer to demonstrate its use in a simulated environment.

▪ The code provides the capability of updating the software in a short period of time without the need of exchanging the interfaces.

◦ Provide a simplified re-configurable hardware.

▪ This microcontroller is capable of executing the attitude determination software for a spacecraft without compromising the computational capability of the flight computer.

▪ The MADS can be reconfigured depending on the interface requirements of the sensors used in the satellite.

Quad-Sitara (QUATARA) Computers for Cubesats

◦ Investigate the development of the multi-core computer systems for small satellites.

▪ The multi-core process allows for multi-sensor connection by using data package management between the different processors.

▪ The multi-computer allows for fault tolerant systems in case that one of the computers fails during flight.

◦ Develop a design for small quad-core computer to increment the computational capability to 1 GHz processing per core for small satellites.

▪ The initial flight computers for small satellites had a CPU capability of less than 128 MHz.

◦ Investigate the algorithms for controlling the data flow between cores.

▪ A plan is generated to provide the first generation multi-core computer for small satellites.

▪ The hardware/software inputs are necessary to understand the multi-core software interface.

◦ Provide GNC software to test the capability of each core using a voting sequence.

▪ The voting sequence is used to determine which processor is working as expected.

▪ This voting sequence provide a method to determine which processor is faulty during its use.