Power Regulation and Linearization-Based Control Design of a Small Satellite

The aerospace industry realizes the significance of CubeSats to provide a cost-effective spacecraft to fulfill the increasing demand for space-based technologies. To guarantee a successful flight in space featuring a propulsion system, the installation of a propellant tank inside the CubeSat, should be performed first. The mathematical model describing the temperatures of the main parts of a CubeSat has been formulated in the nonlinear ODEs form. In this paper, we will employ a linearization method to regulate the temperature strictly to track the reference value. Several simulation results are presented for different heating power values, to classify the adequate heating power to stabilize the fuel tank thermal fluctuations. Moreover, the linearization control of the model is accomplished and simulated. The simulation results show accurate tracking of the reference temperature while consuming minimal power, which is essential for practical operation.