An Efficient Design-to-Verification Framework for CubeSat ADCS: Application to INHA RoSAT

CubeSats are increasingly adopted for space missions due to their low cost and short development cycles. However, their attitude determination and control systems (ADCS) often suffer from limited verification environments and constrained hardware configurations. This study addresses the development and verification of a flight-ready ADCS for the INHA RoSAT 3U CubeSat under realistic constraints in hardware, software, and test infrastructure. A model-based design (MBD) approach is adopted to construct an integrated development pipeline covering algorithm design, simulation, automatic C code generation, and integration with flight software (FSW). The generated code is embedded into a closed commercial onboard computer framework while preserving consistency across model-in-the-loop (MIL) and processor-in-the-loop (PIL) verification stages. To compensate for the lack of full hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) facilities, a FlatSat-based Sensor-to-Actuator test strategy is introduced to validate critical hardware–software interfaces including signal polarity, unit consistency, mounting orientation, and data flow using actual flight hardware. Furthermore, a fault-aware hierarchical attitude control scheme is defined in which the controller transitions to an alternative controller upon actuator fault indications. The presented approach demonstrates a practical ADCS development and verification strategy suitable for resource-constrained CubeSat missions, providing guidance for teams facing similar limitations in cost, resources, and test infrastructure.