Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-112).

This thesis presents a comparison of controller designs and a system software design for a general Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) system. The first part of the thesis investigates four control algorithms based on Lyapunov Direct Method in conjunction with sliding mode and adaptive control. These algorithms address three practical issues in controller design: maximum actuation limitation, external disturbances, and imperfect dynamic models. Each of the algorithms is proven to be globally asymptotically stable within its constraints. A simulation is then used to model a cube-satellite attitude maneuver using each of the controllers to evaluate its performance. The second part of this thesis discusses the development of a high-level flight software architecture capable of handling common tasks, including ground station communication and attitude maneuvers, as well as power or device failures. / text

A Command and Data Handling (C&DH) system is being developed as part of a series of CubeSat missions being built at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Spacecraft Laboratory (TSL). With concurrent development of four missions, and with more missions planned for the future, the C&DH team is developing a system architecture that can support many mission requirements. The presented research aims to establish itself as a reference for the development of the C&DH system architecture so that it can be reused for future university missions. The C&DH system is designed using a centralized architecture with one main flight computer controlling the actions and the state of the satellite. A Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) system-on-module embedded computer running a Linux environment hosted on a custom interface board is used as the platform for the mission software. This design choice and the implementation details of the flight software are described in detail in this report. The design of the flight software and the associated hardware are integral components of the spacecraft for the current missions in the TSL which, when flown, will be some of the most operationally complex CubeSat missions attempted to date. / text

Software architecture provides a high-level framework for a software system, and plays an important role in achieving functional and non-functional requirements. Since the year 2004, software architecture has been considered as a set of architectural design decisions (ADDs). However, software architecture is implicit and evolves as the software development process moves forward. The implicitness together with continuous evolution leads to many problems such as architecture drift and erosion as well as high cost reconstruction. Without capturing and managing ADDs, most of existing architectural knowledge evaporates, and reusing and evolving architecture can be difficult. These problems are even more serious in global software development (GSD). This dissertation presents a novel methodology for capturing ADDs during the architecting process and managing the evolution of ADDs to reduce architectural knowledge evaporation. This methodology explicitly documents ADDs using a scenario-based approach, which covers three views of a software architecture, to record architectural knowledge, and incorporates evolution-centered characteristics to manage ADD evolution for reducing architectural knowledge evaporation. Furthermore, the dissertation presents ADD management in the context of GSD to analyze typical ADD management paradigms, and to offer insights on, techniques on, and support for sharing and coordinating ADDs in a GSD setting. This dissertation focuses on both the documentation and the evolution needs for ADDs in localized and global software development. / text

The goal of the thesis is to investigate and propose a new design for a contactor platform, both in terms of hardware and embedded software, which incorporates support to implement new state-of-the-art functions. The platform must support a wide range of contactors from basic ones with only core functions to advanced contactors using modern microcontrollers to provide efficient, quick and reliable operation.   Further, a significant focus of the thesis is on the interaction between electrical engineering and computer engineering. The electronics needs to interact seamlessly with a microcontroller running a versatile software to provide industry-leading performance. To achieve this, the software and hardware is evaluated with focus to develop an optimal platform.   The proposed embedded software uses development techniques rarely used in embedded applications such as UML code generation, compile-time initiation of objects and an object-oriented design, while maintaining the performance of traditional embedded programming. The thesis also provides suggestions to hardware changes to further improve to the contactor’s operation.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Written for the School of Computer Science. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2007/08/30). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/01/30). Written for the School of Computer Science. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Written for the School of Computer Science. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/12/05). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-98). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 126 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-126).