Attitude Control of CubeSats: Design and Performance Comparison of Similar Proportional Derivative and Backstepping Techniques

With the advancement of aerospace technology, the issue of spacecraft attitude control has grown in significance, especially in light of CubeSats, which provide inexpensive access to space with a variety of mission capabilities. For satellite payloads like antennas, solar panels, and observation tools to be oriented correctly, the Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS), which can use active control methods or passive stabilization procedures, is responsible for this duty. Because of their resilience and efficiency in handling external disturbances and nonlinear satellite dynamics, proportional-derivative (PD) and backstepping controllers are among the many nonlinear control techniques that have been developed in the literature. The difficulty of attitude control for the 12U CubeSat 1HOPSAT (first-generation high optical performance satellite) is addressed in this work. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, two distinct control strategies, a backstepping controller and a similar proportional-derivative controller, are developed and examined. Their accuracy, stability, and convergence time are highlighted in the comparison analysis, which offers helpful guidance for choosing effective control schemes for CubeSat missions.