The Educational Irish Research Satellite, known as EIRSAT-1, is a student-led project to design, build, test and launch Ireland's first satellite. The on-board software for this mission is being developed using Bright Ascension's GenerationOne Flight Software Development Kit. This paper provides an overview of this kit and of EIRSAT-1's on-board software design. Drawing on the team's contrasting experience with writing entirely custom firmware for the mission's science payloads, this work discusses the impact of using a kit on the software development process. The challenges associated with the educational nature of this project are the focus of this discussion. The objective of this paper is to provide useful information for other CubeSat teams assessing software development options.

The Educational Irish Research Satellite, EIRSAT-1, is a project developed by students at University College Dublin that aims to design, build, and launch Ireland's first satellite. EIRSAT-1 is a 2U CubeSat incorporating three novel payloads; GMOD, a gamma-ray detector, EMOD, a thermal coating management experiment, and WBC, a novel attitude control algorithm. The EIRSAT-1 project is carried out with the support of the Education Office of the European Space Agency, under the educational Fly your Satellite! programme. The Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) plan for EIRSAT-1 is central to the philosophyand the development of the spacecraft. The model philosophy employed for the project is known as the 'prototype' approach in which two models of the spacecraft are assembled; an Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) and a Flight Model (FM). The payloads, GMOD and EMOD, and the Antenna Deployment Module (ADM) platform element warrant a Development Model (DM) in addition to an EQM and a FM, as they have been designed and developed inhouse. The engineering qualification model serves as both a FlatSat for electrical integration testing and as a representative model for testing of software code, patching and operational decisions during the active mission. The EQM is tested to qualification levels and durations during the environmental test campaign. The flight model contains the flight versions of the payloads, ADM platform element and the procured hardware elements. It undergoes acceptance level testing and it is the final spacecraft to be delivered to ESA for flight. After successful completion of the Critical Design Review (CDR) and Ambient Test Readiness Review (ATRR) phases of the project, the EQM of EIRSAT-1 will be assembled and integrated in University College Dublin. After assembly and integration of the EQM, the project will begin the ambient test campaign, in which the EQM undergoes ambient functional and mission testing. This work details the preparation and execution of the assembly, integration, and verification activities of EIRSAT-1 EQM.

The Gamma-Ray Module (GMOD) is a novel gamma-ray detector developed for the study of high energy astrophysical transients called Gamma-Ray Bursts. GMOD has been designed in-house and will be flown on board EIRSAT-1, intended to be Ireland's first satellite, a 2U CubeSat developed as part of the European Space Agency's Fly Your Satellite! programme. The detector comprises a 25×25×40mm CeBr 3 scintillator, coupled to a tiled array of 16 OnSemiconductor Silicon Photomultipliers with front-end readout provided by the IDE3380 SIPHRA. The readout is received by the GMOD Motherboard which provides temporary storage and support functionality for the instrument operation, including the transfer of Time-Tagged Event data to the EIRSAT-1 On Board Computer. The Engineering Qualification Model was environmentally tested following an approach tailored from the ECSS standards in early February 2020 at the CubeSat Support Facility in Transinne, Belgium. This campaign was conducted to qualify the hardware for low Earth orbit, including multi-axis vibration testing and thermal-vacuum cycling under qualification test levels and durations. GMOD was mounted on a 20kN electrodynamic shaker in which it underwent predefined sine and random vibration test profiles, demonstrating its ability to withstand the launch environment. The instrument was then thermally cycled under vacuum over

In this paper, offline adaptive control of a microgrid in an islanded operation mode is presented. The proposed control scheme consists of a power controller, voltage controller, and current controller, which are operating in a cascade structure. The power controller is designed based on the droop characteristics while the voltage and current loops are optimal Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers. Due to the fact that the performance of all PI controllers fundamentally depends on the proper choice of controller parameters, these parameters are optimized based on the offline utilization of the Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) method and the Genetic Algorithm. The adaptation mechanism in the MRAC method is usually determined using the mathematical model of the system, while in this paper, an optimal adaptation mechanism is achieved by the Genetic Algorithm. The optimal parameters of the controller could be obtained based on the measurements of the Distributed Generation (DG) output voltage when the DG is operating with a test load without any knowledge of its model. To investigate the performance of the suggested controller, simulations are done by MATLAB/Simulink in three different scenarios including load perturbation, disconnection of a DG, and nonlinear load, where the results are compared with IEEE recommendation. In addition, the suggested controller is compared with the H2/H∞ robust controller.

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