EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE FOR THE ATITTUDE DETERMINATION OF ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental approach developed within a project of an artificial satellites attitude determination device. The device is based on a solid state magnetometer as the main vector direction sensor, an auxiliary virtual solar sensor and a microcontroller of the 8051 family. The experimental tests and the development of the methodology use initially the LabView software platform for the algorithm computations and a Helmholtz coil for the magnetic field generation. The adopted algorithm for the satellite attitude estimation is based on an optimization method called q-Method. The results obtained using the microcontroller and the LabView are presented and analyzed. Conclusions and next steps of the project close the paper. Keywords: artificial satellites, attitude determination, magnetometer, embedded systems.