Cubesat BDOT Control Modelling-Detumbling and Angular Momentum Management

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the uses of magnetic torquers on a CubeSat. This is focused on tuning the gain value of a B-DOT controller for the Detumbling of the ESSENCE CubeSat. This was tested with a converged rate value of 0.05deg/secs as the criterion over 15 orbits; with each simulation having a total of 20 runs. The matrix chosen for the gain value was tested to ensure it was feasible regardless of a change in the initial tumbling rate, settling time and slight command errors. The Appendix shows sample test results for this model. The second magnetic torquer use which was to have a gain tuning was the momentum dumping. the control law was a variant of the B-DOT controller focusing on the angular momentum, this was applied to the form of Angular Momentum Management of the CubeSat. Although the overall testing procedure was edited, more tuning is required for the momentum dumping gain value.