Senior AOCS Engineer

Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) design, analysis, implementation, testing and maintenance.

 

Details of work:

• Design, implement, test, and validate algorithms used in the AOCS of Synspective's Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, such as: sensor data filtering, orbit and attitude estimation, attitude controller, reaction wheels and magnetorquer control, operation modes control, failsafe mechanisms, etc.
• Work closely with the embedded software engineers to integrate the AOCS into the rest of the flight software.
• Validate the design through unit testing, Model In the Loop Simulation (MILS), Hardware In the Loop Simulation (HILS), and tests on the physical satellite.
• Assist the testing and validation of the AOCS components during the satellite Assembly Integration and Testing (AIT) process.
• Model sensors, actuators, and other physical components in MATLAB/Simulink/Simscape and fit the component model using test data.
• Take part in the launch campaign: prepare the necessary items for launch operation, monitor the behavior during the critical phase, and provide technical support to the satellite operation team.
• Participate in weekly meetings and design reviews.
• Perform design studies for the development of our next generation of satellites.
• Review and validate designs and test results.
• Mentor more junior members.

 

Selling points of the role:

• Great opportunity for growth as an engineer.
• See the complete lifecycle of a satellite, from the early design to the launch and in-orbit operation.
• Work in an international team.

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Control Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Robotics Engineering. We will consider an equivalent combination of relevant education and/or experience.
• At least 8 years of hands-on experience in the design and validation of control systems, preferably on autonomous systems (satellite, launch vehicle, drone, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), self-driving car, robot, etc.).
• Thorough understanding of multibody dynamics: coordinate transformation between reference frames, kinematics, conservation of energy and momentum, etc.
• Strong analytical and communication skills.
• Strong experience with MATLAB/Simulink.
• Experience working with physical sensors and actuators.
• Willingness to travel to Synspective's factory (Yamato-city) on business trips several times a year.

 

Preferred qualifications:

• Knowledge of orbital mechanics and satellite dynamics.
• Experience in the design, implementation and testing of spacecraft attitude and orbit control algorithms.
• Experience in modeling physical components such as sensors and actuators in MATLAB/Simulink.
• Experience in control law design, beyond classical techniques: non-linear design, optimal design.
• Experience in state estimation using Kalman filtering and anomaly detection algorithms.
• Experience in model identification.
• Knowledge of GNC hardware components such as: reaction wheels, magnetorquers, GPS receivers, gyroscopes, star trackers.
• Experience in modeling finite state machines in Stateflow.
• Experience programming in C/C++.
• Experience in generating C/C++ code from Simulink.