CubeSat A second year design project to to design and build a CubeSat capable of performing attitude and translation motion tasks.

Module Lead

Franziska Conrad

Teaching Team

Dr Sergio Araujo-Estrada
Dr Zhenzhou Wang
Merle Weniger
Matas Gelzinis
James Saletes

 

For the CubeSat design, build, and test activity teams of second year students apply their knowledge of mechanical systems design, computer programming and control to design and build a CubeSat capable of performing attitude and translation motion tasks.

Each team is provided with a standard set of components (e.g., sensors, motion controller, thrusters, Arduino kit) and a design brief. Using their ingenuity and skills they then design the CubeSat structure, integrate the sensor suite, and design and test a control system to accurately track a light source and to efficiently complete translation motion manoeuvres. Both the light tracking and the translation motion tests are conducted within the testing arena at the University of Southampton Boldrewood Innovation Campus where the performance of the resulting CubeSat is assessed using our state-of-the-art motion capture system.