Third-year engineering students, Amy Spiteri, Gilbert Vassallo, Brian Azzopardi and Matthew Magro, together with Dr Ing. Marc Anthony Azzopardi and Ing. Evan Dimech (from the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering) have used a 10-meter conical pendulum to set a pico-satellite model "in orbit" around a large sphere representing planet Earth.

The aim of this orbital model was to physically simulate the periodic light changes on the faces of a satellite as it orbits a much larger planet. The lab model is obviously not to scale, but it is nevertheless useful to wirelessly transmit data collected from real sensors (with noise, non-linearities and all) to train and test a set of robust attitude and orbital determination (data fusion) algorithms developed by other students.

The picosat model makes use of gyroscopes, magnetometers and information from light sensors placed on each face to generate the required data-set. We thus estimate the real-time position and orientation of the satellite in "Low-Earth Orbit" (LEO) around the model planet, and we then compare the results with those obtained from an embedded inertial measurement unit (IMU).