Reaction wheel design for CubeSats

Abstract

This paper presents a reaction wheel design for CubeSats where it takes the limitation of size and mass into consideration. It presents an overview of which altitudes it is feasible to use magnetic torquers for momentum dumping as well as presenting equations for customizing reaction wheels for a CubeSat mission. The reaction wheels are then simulated for different CubeSat sizes and proved capable of performing attitude maneuvers. During these simulations a non-linear passivity-based sliding surface controller is used which through Lyapunov stability theory has been shown to be uniformly asymptotically stable.