De-Tumbling Controller of NIUSAT: Design, Simulation and On-Orbit Performance

Abstract

NIUSAT was developed by the students of Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education under the guidance of various faculties of our college and support from the ISRO experts. One of the most important problems that a satellite faces after being separated from the launcher is the tumbling. When the satellite has relatively high angular velocity, it is said to be tumbling. Tumbling occurs right after the release of the satellite from the launcher and also during the deployment of the nano-satellite from the launcher. The first task of attitude control system is to de-tumble the satellite. We have to bring down the angular velocities before starting to stabilize the satellite because the stabilization controllers may not have the capacity stabilize the satellite with high initial velocities. So taking considerations of these things, we have to design the de-tumbling controller in such a way that it takes reasonable measures to effectively reduce the tumbling of the satellite in a reasonable time. In this paper, we will describe the design details of the de-tumbling controller, digital simulation results and the on-orbit performance on board the NIUSAT nano-satellite.