NanoSats/CubeSats ADCS survey

Abstract

From 2013 till the end of 2016, more than 552 NanoSats (500 CubeSats among them), weighing less than 10kg, have been launched successfully in total. With the explosive growth of NanoSats/CubeSats, Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) of NanoSats/CubeSats has undergone a profound transform and has changed from the initial passive attitude stabilization to active and precise attitude control. This paper summarizes the current state of the art in NanoSats/CubeSats technology for ADCS, based on an available data base of 377 sample ADCS systems from publically reported Nano/CubeSats missions. The advancement of NanoSat/CubeSat missions and their ADCS requirements are first summarized, a discussion on various ADCS sensors, attitude determination algorithms, actuators, and control schemes is then conducted. Further analyses on the various ADCS schemes versus their achievable performances are provided. This survey shows, NanoSat-compatible attitude actuators, miniaturized attitude sensors, GPS receivers and various attitude determination algorithms were widely adopted to achieve different pointing requirements. The reported attitude pointing accuracy has seen a range from being above 10 deg down to below 1 deg (according to different control schemes). Statistics indicates that almost every successfully launched NanoSat/CubeSat employs magnetometer, Sun sensors and magnetic coils; about 23% of the NanoSats/CubeSats had adopted passive attitude control strategies while more than 50% of them had adopted the advanced reaction wheels-based attitude control strategies, which would provide precise pointing.