Introduction

Howdy y’all, and welcome to Guidance, Navigation, and Controls (GNC). The purpose of our subteam is to be able to build a reliable satellite navigation and control system for our CubeSat. This entails being able to appropriately identify when our satellite is passing over our ground target and being able to accurately predict and control what our current attitude (orientation) of our CubeSat will be.

The only thing you need to know is that we are working on the theoretical, modelling aspect of the cubesat. Making sure that the sensors and actuators we have are good enough to succeed in the mission.

Software and Computer Setup

There’s no current requirement on which computer you need to run, as long as you’ve heard of it. If you’re running Solaris, we apologize but you’re on your own!

1. You will need to download MATLAB. Refer to MATLAB Version document on the onboarding to see what MATLAB version to download. Please note that this version is required as it will cause version incompatibilities with our SimuLink files (.slx) that you’ll encounter later

   1. Make sure to select the following packages during the install. These will be required to open and play around with our models:
      • [ ] Simulink
      • [ ] Simulink 3D Animation
      • [ ] Simulink Coder
      • [ ] Simulink Compiler
      • [ ] Simscape
      • [ ] Simscape Multibody
      • [ ] Aerospace Blockset
      • [ ] Aerospace Toolbox
      • [ ] Ephemeris Data for Aerospace Toolbox
      • [ ] Communications Toolbox
      • [ ] Satellite Communications Toolbox
      • [ ] Control System Toolbox
      • [ ] Curve Fitting Toolbox
      • [ ] DSP System Toolbox
      • [ ] MATLAB Coder
      • [ ] MATLAB Compiler
      • [ ] Embedded Coder
   2. One you have MATLAB installed, open the application and at the top right you’ll find the button labelled “Add-Ons”. Clicking this will open up a menu where you can install new add-ons.
      1. Click on “Manage Add-Ons” on the top right and verify that all the packages listed above have been installed
      2. If you’re feeling mischievous, feel free to install the package “New Desktop for MATLAB Tech Preview”. This is essentially a beta dark mode for MATLAB (not Simulink unfortunately) that will save your eyes. It’s not guaranteed to work on every system though

2. (Skip this step unless explicitly specified by lead) Ensure Git is installed on your computer and clone the ADCS modelling repo. Once cloned, you should take a poke around inside and attempt to run some of our models. We should note that we will be transitioning to a GNC specific repo very shortly!

   https://github.com/UWOrbital/adcs-modelling

Next Steps

Next up on the list for you is tackling our onboarding challenge