Fully magnetic attitude control subsystem for picosat platforms

In this paper, the design of a fully magnetic attitude control subsystem for a picosat platform is discussed. The developed control law is based on a simple and reliable architecture, which can be easily implemented on small spacecrafts for de-tumbling and three-axis stabilization purposes. The subsystem design follows a practical engineering approach, exploiting global optimization methods, which lead to an integral actuation compliant with typical pointing accuracy requirements for picosat missions. Performance of the proposed attitude control subsystem is demonstrated by numerical simulations.