AODCS Electronics 8-bit mC - 1.8W

ALMASpace's ADCS electronic PCB has been designed as part of ALMASat-1 ADCS subsystem in order to provide the Orbital Determination and the Three Axis stabilization of the microsatellite acquiring the demanded angular momentum and compensating the external disturbance torques along the pitch axis.

The electronic PCB that implements the Attitude Determination and Control system is based on a 8-bit microcontroller, selected in order to have the maximum amount of peripherals that are necessary to perform the satellite attitude control, using 6 magnetic coils and a momentum wheel, and the satellite attitude determination, using the sun sensors and the magnetometers.

The implemented peripherals and control units are:

1. 2 8-bit microcontroller: one used to perform the control algorithms, the other one used to perform the estimation algorithms, connected together by 2 UART serial ports .
2. 6 10-bit PWM signals, used to driver the H-bridge that controls the magnetic coils
3. 1 10-bit DAC, used to generate the analog reference voltage that drives the momentum wheel brushless motor
4. 4 RS232 serial ports that can be used to communicate with the magnetometers, or with a PC while debugging and downloading the data.
5. 2 different CAN controller, one for each microcontroller, that are used to download the data from the sun sensors, and let the ADCS to communicate with the other satellites subsystems.
6. 16 8-bit ADC channels, used to acquire information on the ADCS behavior, such as current consumptions and voltage levels of the various units.
7. More than 150 general purpose programmable IO lines.
8. 1 Real Time Clock with independent power source.
9. 4 256kbit EEPROM units, used to store various important data during the satellite mission.

The PCB can be programmed and configured using the microcontroller JTAG interface, or the ISP interface.