Month: 2025-10 – AVSLab/basilisk Key features delivered: - Stepper Motor Control and Simulation: payload definitions for stepper motor commands and state; a simulation model that tracks angular position, velocity, and acceleration based on step commands; unit tests validating nominal operation and interrupted actuation sequences. Major bugs fixed: - None reported for this repository in October 2025. Overall impact and accomplishments: - Delivered a complete motor-control feature with offline simulation and test coverage, enabling safer, more reliable motion control and reducing integration risk. This supports predictable actuation behavior and accelerates feature iteration. Technologies/skills demonstrated: - Embedded motor control design, real-time simulation modeling, unit testing, test-driven development, payload/message design, and disciplined version control. Key commits: - 75f90c1a47926913d3e434c86fe0811ee0b93d0f: Add new stepper motor messages - e50fc83b2d4abe2b0ee9cb4b376698558eb43cb2: Add the stepper motor simulation module - 22b0319a9422b1b8728fa39c06b3e267e302bf7a: Add the stepper motor test file

Month: 2025-09. Delivered a new Stepper Motor Simulation Module in AVSLab/basilisk to model actuation of motor-driven spacecraft components. Included comprehensive documentation (state computation, actuation profiles, interruption handling) and release notes clarifying its role as a kinematic profiler. This enables realistic validation and planning of spacecraft subsystem actuation in simulations, improving mission assurance and planning workflows. Key commits submitted alongside the feature include a822dfe344c12f4d9a73cacd3f3d299b19d661f2 (Add the stepper motor documentation) and 812cf518a7273fff8cda5eb34d7f2fd5c54f5bfb (Update release notes).

August 2025 monthly summary for lasp/basilisk: Delivered substantial code quality improvements, test suite enhancements, and robust motor control behavior. Key work includes a comprehensive code refactor and cleanup, test suite refactor with naming consistency and interruption coverage, motor control and time handling improvements, and modular plotting utilities. Also removed a configuration risk by eliminating the motor thetaDDotMax setting. These changes enhance maintainability, reduce risk of misconfiguration, and improve test reliability and onboarding.

July 2025 monthly summary for lasp/basilisk focused on stabilizing the StepperMotorController module, improving maintainability, safety, and test coverage. Delivered two major enhancements with validation tests, performed extensive refactoring and test cleanup, and consolidated testing and docs to strengthen CI reliability. All work maintained motor control behavior while reducing future maintenance costs and enabling faster iteration for hardware integration.

June 2025 monthly summary for lasp/basilisk: Highlights include key refactors to improve maintainability and testability while preserving behavior. SunSafePoint logic was refactored into a dedicated SunSafePointAlgorithm with an adapter delegating to the algorithm; module names were clarified to reduce cognitive load and future extensibility. EphemNavConverter was modularized by extracting core logic into EphemNavConverterAlgorithm and updating integration points; header and utilities were cleaned to support future testing and validation. The changes emphasize const-correctness, adjacency of related logic, and local scoping of internal state to reduce risk of regressions.

May 2025 delivered a comprehensive refactor and quality uplift for lasp/basilisk, focusing on architecture, lifecycle safety, correctness, and test reliability. The work reduces defect surface, improves maintainability, and enables faster, safer evolution of features and performance improvements.

April 2025 monthly summary for AVSLab/basilisk and lasp/basilisk. This period focused on foundational architectural improvements, code quality, and increased stability across motion-state processing and sensor fusion. Key outcomes include cross-repo standardization, Eigen-based refactors, API consistency enhancements, and expanded test coverage.

March 2025 (lasp/basilisk) - Focused on test reliability and regression readiness with no new user-facing features this month. Major work centered on improving the ThrusterPlatformReference unit test to exercise a realistic kinematic state and avoid a degenerate case. By initializing sigma_MB from an Euler-derived vector rather than a zero vector, the DCM is guaranteed non-zero, producing a more robust, representative test scenario and reducing CI false positives/negatives. This work strengthens module confidence and protects production behavior through better test coverage and data realism. Business value: - Improves confidence in ThrusterPlatformReference behavior under realistic conditions, reducing risk of undetected regressions in production. - Enhances CI reliability by eliminating degenerate test scenarios, leading to faster and more dependable feedback loops. Technologies/skills: - Unit testing discipline, vector math, Euler-derived initialization, DCM handling, test data generation. - Git-based traceability and change impact assessment for non-feature work.

February 2025 monthly summary for lasp/basilisk: Focused on reliability and maintainability of the Thruster Platform Reference. Delivered a code refactor to improve readability and maintainability without changing core rotation/state calculations, and fixed a matrix multiplication bug in the transposition logic to ensure correct thruster calculations. Impact includes more reliable motion control, reduced regression risk, and a cleaner, better-documented codebase. Demonstrated skills in refactoring, numerical calculation debugging, and adherence to code quality standards through pre-commit hygiene.

In 2024-12, delivered a comprehensive facet data model refactor for AVSLab/basilisk, aligning facet data variables with frame-specific definitions, expanding the public API, and strengthening the unit test suite and documentation. These changes improve correctness, API usability, test coverage, and maintainability, unlocking safer integration and faster iteration for downstream features and scenarios.

November 2024: Delivered critical improvements to facet attitude handling in two Basilisk forks (AVSLab/basilisk and lasp/basilisk). Key changes focused on correcting rotation sign conventions in facet attitude computations, aligning transformation notation with the intended rotation direction, and updating documentation to reflect the correct PRV2C order. The work enhances simulation fidelity, reliability, and cross-repo consistency, especially for solar-panel dynamics and body-frame transformations.