ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

Seeing that Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) simulation has been an efficient way to verify and validate the design of satellite systems, especially that of Attitude and Orbit Control Subsystem (AOCS), it is essential to develop software components that can be reused for HIL in different but similar projects. Dynamics and space environmental models, sensor and actuator models, control algorithms and management strategies—each of these components plays a fundamental role in construction of HIL simulation. However, distinguishing hardware systems and graphical programming development environments used to establish the whole test platform may make the reuse of them difficult from project to project in that the developers have their own preferences of hardware solution; therefore, it takes time to transfer the same idea to various selected targets. This paper describes a rapid approach to develop a Hardware-In-The-Loop simulator which imitates a simplified Flight Computer with AOCS interfaces and contains mathematic simulation models as mentioned above for FORMOSAT-5, a 3-axis-stabilized, remote-sensing satellite, which is being developed by NSPO and will be launched in late 2013. In this simulator, all core, hardware-independent software elements have been designed by advanced metaprogramming, highly object-oriented technique and implemented by standard C++, without relying on any other non-standard library. Then, in order to reduce the development time of handling real-time OS, IO interfaces and their drivers, we used commercial off-the-shelf, PC-based hardware devices and related graphic programming environment, which is Simulink/xPC target in this case but alternative like LabView/RT is feasible, to build the hardware system. Finally, by wrapping C++ software components into the above software development environment, the customized software and hardware system were integrated into a simulation platform. As a result, a prototyping Hardware-In-The-Loop simulator, based on this hardwaredecoupled approach, has been accomplished, and the AOCS design of FORMOSAT-5 has also primarily demonstrated and validated in real-time environment. t also will be extended to be an industrial-strength platform and become one of AOCS test facilities for FORMSAT-5 during the integration and test phase.