Condensing AI-Based Attitude Control Using Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks for Memory Efficiency

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming engineering fields, from robotics to aerospace, with applications in control systems for UAVs and satellites. This work builds on a previously developed AI attitude controller for the InnoCube 3U nanosatellite. Deploying complex Neural Networks (NNs) on resource-limited microcontrollers presents a significant challenge. To overcome this, we propose distilling a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) trained with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) for attitude control into a Kolmogorov–Arnold Network (KAN). We convert this numeric KAN into a symbolic KAN, where each edge represents a learnable mathematical function, and finally extract a concise symbolic formula. This symbolic representation dramatically reduces memory usage and computational complexity, making it ideal for pico- and nanosatellites. We evaluate and demonstrate the feasibility of this approach for inertial pointing with reaction wheels in simulation using a realistic model of the InnoCube satellite. Our results show that the highly compressed KANs successfully solve the attitude control problem, while reducing the required memory footprint and inference time on the InnoCube ADCS hardware by over an order of magnitude. Beyond attitude control, we believe symbolic KANs hold great potential in aerospace for neural network compression and interpretable, data-driven modeling and system identification in future space missions.