Quaternion-based attitude control design and hardware-in-the-loop simulation of suborbital modules with cold gas thrusters

Abstract

This paper discusses design and implementation of a quaternion-based attitude control system for the short-duration mission of suborbital modules using cold-gas thrusters. The quaternion-based controller generates a command torque for each channel, and a pulse-width pulse-frequency (PWPF) modulator determines the required fire signals for the thrusters. The system performance is examined through both numerical and hardware-in-the-loop simulations.