Real time hardware-in-loop simulation of ESMO satellite attitude control system

This paper studies attitude control of the ESMO satellite using six reaction thrusters. Bang-bang control with dead-zone and Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) for the modulation of the on-time of the thrusters are treated. Closed loop hardware-in-loop simulations, using the microcontroller unit (MCU) Microchip PIC18F452 for implementation of attitude control and MatLab in a standard PC for simulating satellite dynamics, are carried out. Results for real time simulation are compared with autonomous simulations. The controller gives a satisfactory performance in the real time environment.