Implementation of a nanosatellite attitude determination and control system for the T-Sat1 mission

The design of attitude determination and control of nanosatellites requires innovative solutions that are low-cost, small in size, and minimized power consumption. The University of Manitoba T-Sat1 project has created a simple complement of sensors and actuators that can provide stable determination and orientation. The linear region of photodiode readings was combined with magnetometer readings in a sensor-fusion attitude determination algorithm. The actuators were custom-built torque discs on printed circuit boards that proved easy to mount and generate fields 25 nT that are sufficient to orient the satellite while in orbit. The torque disc manufacturing process is described with details on the imperfections and lessons learned from the prototypes. This paper describes the hardware and software design and implementation for the attitude determination and control of the T-Sat1 nanosatellite.