Case Study: Naval Postgraduate School achieves faster development and testing of spacecraft guidance algorithms with MathWorks

Naval Postgraduate School Speeds Development and Testing of Spacecraft Guidance Algorithms with a Rapid Control Prototyping Test Bed

The Naval Postgraduate School faced the challenge of developing and validating increasingly autonomous spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) algorithms in a way that captured real-world effects without the cost of on-orbit tests. To give students hands-on experience and handle real-time, multirate embedded code, the Naval Postgraduate School used MathWorks tools — primarily MATLAB, Simulink, Simulink Coder, and Aerospace Blockset — together with their POSEIDYN floating spacecraft simulator test bed.

MathWorks helped the team implement a Model-Based Design workflow: researchers built plant and component models in Simulink, used Aerospace Blockset’s Simulation Pace, and generated C code with Simulink Coder to run on the FSS onboard Intel Atom processors for hardware-in-the-loop testing. The MathWorks-based approach boosted productivity (the group published more than five journal and six conference papers in one year), let students develop and test code offsite via a campus license, and cut tasks that once took weeks down to about six hours from simulation to hardware results.

Naval Postgraduate School

Marcello Romano

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering