MATLAB and Simulink for Space Systems

Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)

Using MATLAB and Simulink, you can test your control algorithms with plant models before implementation to achieve complex designs without using expensive prototypes. You can design for multiple physical configurations, such as the common bus architecture of a satellite design. In a single environment, you can work on:

• Building and sharing GNC models
• Integrating and simulating system-level effects of controls and mechanical design changes
• Reusing automatically generated flight code and test cases
• Integrating new designs with legacy designs and tools

Communications Systems

You can use MATLAB and Simulink as a common design environment to develop, analyze, and implement spacecraft communications systems. You can model and visualize satellite orbits, perform link analysis, and access calculations. MATLAB and Simulink help you prototype signal chain elements—including RF, antenna, and digital elements—and combine the work of multiple teams as a system-level executable model.

You can explore imperfections at the system level and examine what-if scenarios that are difficult to produce in the lab. As the design matures, you can automatically generate C code for embedded processors or HDL code for FPGAs.

Space Flight Software Engineering for Space Standards Compliance

Flight software engineers need to comply with a wide array of standards that govern their processes. With MATLAB and Simulink, you can conform to standards used around the world such as the NASA Software Engineering Requirements (NPR 7150.2), the European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS) Space Engineering Software (ECSS-E-ST-40), and Software Product Assurance (ECSS-Q-ST-80) standards.

You can run requirements-based unit tests and use automated modeling standard checks, such as the modeling standards developed for the NASA Orion program, to ensure that your flight software algorithms are production ready. You can then automatically generate C and C++ code from the models and use static code analysis, formal methods, and code-review capabilities to check compliance to standards such as MISRA.

MATLAB and Simulink let you prove the absence of run-time errors and automate code inspection. You can automate the generation of reports and certification artifacts at each step, including software design documents, metrics, and requirements.