CubeSat Detumbling Simulation Using B-dot Control Law

Abstract

The exponential increase in CubeSat launches in recent years, particularly through university and technology programs, has sparked advancements in Attitude Control Systems (ACS), which address satellite tumbling and detumbling issues critical to mission success. A widely used control law for this is the B-dot control, which leverages the interaction between Earth's magnetic field and the magnetic field produced by current-carrying coils along three orthogonal axes to control the satellite's rotation. This method is popular for CubeSats due to its simplicity, ease of implementation, and low computational demands. This study outlines the methodology for developing this control strategy and validates its effectiveness with a MATLAB implementation on the PdQSat, demonstrating successful detumbling capabilities.