Session
Technical Poster Session III
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
The large-scale development and deployment of small satellite systems in the modern aerospace sector motivates the parallel development of new flight software and avionics systems to meet the demands of modern spaceflight operations. Robot Operating System (ROS) provides an open-sourced and modular software framework that can be adapted for space-faring purposes in addition to the standard robotics operations that it is intended for.
At the University of Florida’s Advanced Autonomous Multiple Spacecraft (ADAMUS) Laboratory, this framework, serving as the first flight-ready implementation of ROS in spacecraft flight software architecture, will be used in two upcoming CubeSat missions: (1) The Drag De-Orbit Device (D3) mission and (2) the PAssive Thermal Coating Observatory Operating in Low earth orbit (PATCOOL) mission. These missions will serve to validate the reusability of this software and the core functionality contained within, supporting tasks such as data link transmission, command processing, GNC (guidance, navigation & control), avionics system health diagnostics and soft/hard reboot instantiation. These capabilities draw upon the foundations of ROS in which tasks are handled by software modules that communicate through a language-agnostic messaging system resulting in an efficient multiprocessing architecture. Improvements and design considerations are also proposed in addition to suggestions for possible future use-cases of ROS in spaceflight software design.
A Novel Approach to CubeSat Flight Software Development Using Robot Operating System (ROS)
Utah State University, Logan, UT
The large-scale development and deployment of small satellite systems in the modern aerospace sector motivates the parallel development of new flight software and avionics systems to meet the demands of modern spaceflight operations. Robot Operating System (ROS) provides an open-sourced and modular software framework that can be adapted for space-faring purposes in addition to the standard robotics operations that it is intended for.
At the University of Florida’s Advanced Autonomous Multiple Spacecraft (ADAMUS) Laboratory, this framework, serving as the first flight-ready implementation of ROS in spacecraft flight software architecture, will be used in two upcoming CubeSat missions: (1) The Drag De-Orbit Device (D3) mission and (2) the PAssive Thermal Coating Observatory Operating in Low earth orbit (PATCOOL) mission. These missions will serve to validate the reusability of this software and the core functionality contained within, supporting tasks such as data link transmission, command processing, GNC (guidance, navigation & control), avionics system health diagnostics and soft/hard reboot instantiation. These capabilities draw upon the foundations of ROS in which tasks are handled by software modules that communicate through a language-agnostic messaging system resulting in an efficient multiprocessing architecture. Improvements and design considerations are also proposed in addition to suggestions for possible future use-cases of ROS in spaceflight software design.
