J Control Autom Electr Syst DOI 10.1007/s40313-014-0141-7 A Framework for Development of Satellite Attitude Control Algorithms Marsil de Athayde Costa e Silva · Helosman Valente de Figueiredo · Benjamin Gilles Nicolas Boglietti · Osamu Saotome · Emília Villani · Karl Heinz Kienitz Received: 13 February 2014 / Revised: 5 June 2014 / Accepted: 14 June 2014 © Brazilian Society for Automatics–SBA 2014 Abstract This paper proposes a framework that combines three different environments with decreasing level of abstrac- tion: model-in-the-loop, software-in-the-loop and hardware- in-the-loop. The purpose of the framework is to support the early detection of errors in the development of satel- lite control systems. Associated with the framework, the paper presents the MuSat simulator, a testbed for the devel- opment of satellite attitude controllers. MuSat is composed of a sphere that rotates with three degrees of freedom, sup- ported by an air bearing system. The on-board computer of MuSat follows the integrated modular architecture, proposed for avionics systems. In order to illustrate both the framework M. de Athayde Costa e Silva · H. V. de Figueiredo Graduate Program in Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineering, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50 - Vila das Acácias, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil e-mail: marsil@ymail.com H. V. de Figueiredo e-mail: helosman@gmail.com O. Saotome · K. H. Kienitz Divisão de Engenharia Eletrônica, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50 - Vila das Acácias, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil e-mail: osaotome@ita.br K. H. Kienitz e-mail: kienitz@ita.br E. Villani (B ) Divisão de Engenharia Mecânica, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50 - Vila das Acácias, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil e-mail: evillani@ita.br B. G. N. Boglietti Equatorial Sistemas S.A., Av. Shishima Hifumi 2911, Sala 109 - Parque Tecnológico, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil e-mail: bboglietti@equatorialsistemas.com.br and the testbed, we present the development of a non-linear control scheme. Results indicate that the designed control system fulfils the specified requirements. The example high- lights the contribution of each environment of the framework for control system verification. Keywords Model-based development · Software-in-the-loop · Hardware-in-the-loop · Attitude control simulator 1 Introduction The attitude control system (ACS) of satellites plays a key role in space missions. ACS design errors may cause the loss of the mission, as they can compromise the satellites’ ability to communicate or recharge batteries, among other critical failures. The verification of the ACS software is among the critical activities of the ACS design. The time interval between the introduction of an error in the software design and its detec- tion is determinant to the cost and delay associated with its correction (Pezzè and Young 2008). Along the development cycle, the verification approach must provide means for the early identification of design errors: from the ACS specifica- tion, through the implementation and its full integration with the hardware. In this context, this paper presents two contributions. The first one is a framework for the verification of ACS soft- ware that combines the concepts of model-in-the-loop (MIL), software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL). The framework provides the ACS designer with testing envi- ronments of progressive refinement levels, to be used along the steps of the development lifecycle. In all the environ- ments, the ACS software is executed in closed-loop simula- 123