Innovative power management, attitude determination and control tile for CubeSat standard NanoSatellites

IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst.

et al. 2020

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Attitude Control System (ACS) is one of the critical subsystems of any spacecraft andtypically is in charge of de-tumbling, controlling and orienting the satellite after initial deployment and during the satellite operations. The magnetorquer is a core magnetic attitude control actuator and, therefore, a good choice for nanosatellite attitude stabilization. There are various methods to achieve control torque using the magnetorquer. An innovative design of printed magnetorquer has been proposed for the nanosatellites which is modular, scalable, cost effective, less prone to failure, with reduced harness and power consumption since the traces are printed either on top layer or inner layers of the printed circuit board. The analysis in terms of generated torque with a range of input applied voltages, trace widths, outer and inner-most trace lengths is presented to achieve the optimized design.The optimum operating voltage is selected to generate the desired torque while optimizing the torque to the power ratio. The results of analysis in terms of selection of optimized parameters including torque to power ratio, generated magnetic dipole moment and power consumption have been validated practically on a cubesat panel. The printed magnetorquer configuration is modular which is useful to achieve mission level stabilization requirements. For spin stabilized satellites, the rotation time analysis has been performed using the printed magnetorquer.

Section: Fig 8 Plot Of Operating Voltage Against Torque τ /P Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimized Design and Thermal Analysis of Printed Magnetorquer for Attitude Control of Reconfigurable Nanosatellites

IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst.

et al. 2020

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“…The main approach for designing CubeTCT is to realize a high-bandwidth communication link using low-cost COTS components which are available in the market. This modular design approach of AraMiS-C1 makes the redesign convenient by the reuse of similar modules [10,11].…”

Section: Aramis C1 and Telecommunication Tilementioning

confidence: 99%

Modular Design of RF Front End for a Nanosatellite Communication Subsystem Tile Using Low-Cost Commercial Components

International Journal of Aerospace Engineering

et al. 2019

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In recent years, the development market for low-cost nanosatellites has grown considerably. It has been made possible due to the availability of low-cost launch vectors and the use of “commercial off-the-shelf components” (COTS). The satellite design standardization has also helped a great deal to encourage subsystem reuse over a number of space missions. This has created numerous opportunities for small companies and universities to develop their own nanosatellite or satellite subsystems. Most COTS components are usually not space qualified. In order to make them work and withstand the harsh space environment, they need extra effort in circuit redesign and implementation. Also, by adopting the modularity concept and the design reuse method, the overall testing and nonrecurring development cost can be significantly reduced. This can also help minimize the subsystem testing times. The RF front-end design presented in this paper is also considered one of the better and feasible choices based on the above approach. It consists of an S-band transceiver that is fully implemented using COTS components. In the transmit chain, it is comprised of the transmitting CC2510 RF matching network and a power amplifier (PA) with an RF output power of up to 33 dBm which connects to an antenna using two RF switches. The receive chain starts from the antenna that is connected through two RF switches to the low-noise amplifier (LNA) that further connects to the receiving CC2510 via the RF matching network. The receiver sensitivity is -100 dBm. This is a half-duplex system using the same antenna for transmitting and receiving. The receiver and transmitter chains are isolated together using two RF switches which together provide an isolation of up to 90 dB at 2.4 GHz. The concept behind using two RF switches is to provide better isolation from the transmit chain to the LNA. The matching network of CC2510 has been designed in a symmetric fashion to avoid any delays. All the RF COTS used have been selected according to link budget requirements. The LNA, PA, and RF switches were tested individually for compliance. The passive components used in the overall design of the matching network are chosen on the basis of minimum dimension, least parasitic behaviour, and guaranteed optimum RF matching. Also, the RF COTS used are non-CMOS which makes them more robust against space radiations associated with the LEO environment and enables them to provide a radio communication data rate of up to 500 kbps in both uplink and downlink. The vacant spaces on the implemented PCB are shielded with a partial ground plane to avoid RF interference.

“…In order to implement the numerous advantages of optical communication inside the small spacecraft, the designed discrete transceiver is used as a demonstrator for free space optical as well as glass fiber based intra spacecraft communication. The implementation has been accomplished on the AraMiS architecture [16][17][18][19]. This architecture provides flexible, modular and scalable small satellite bus which can be sized according to the payload demands [1][2][3], [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra‐spacecraft optical communication solutions using discrete transceiver

Praks

et al. 2019

Satell Commun Network

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The ever-decreasing size of the small satellites with more demanding payloads has opened new research areas to investigate innovative onboard data handling solutions. The paper presents the use of optical intra satellite communication using discretely designed transceivers. The transceiver can handle large variations in the received photocurrents and implements filtration against the ambient light. The designed transceiver has been tested with selected optical components including infrared diodes, photo detectors and optical guides to validate its functionality. The displacement damage testing on selected optical components was performed to validate their suitability for use in space. The experimental communication schemes have been presented for free space as well as glass fiber based intra spacecraft communication. 10% of the total satellite mass [38]. The added harness mass puts additional constraints on the cost of the mission launch and fuel requirements. Therefore, the space industry is considering novel and out of the box solutions for future small satellite missions. The European Space Agency, in particular, has initiated projects to implement optical communication for inter as well as intra spacecraft communication [39-40]. As part of the inter-satellite communication activities, the first optical inter-satellite communication link was successfully established between the SPOT-4 and ARTEMIS satellites, proving the concept of utilizing optical communication technologies. In 2006, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) demonstrated a bidirectional optical link between its satellite and ARTEMIS. A number of in orbit communication solutions have been demonstrated on-board the spacecrafts in the last few years [10-15]. Although there have been initiatives of light based communication for relatively larger satellites, there has not been much research and development of implementing optical communication for relatively smaller satellites. A trade-off analysis of wire and wireless communication solutions for small spacecrafts was performed based on the recent literature review [20-27]. The traditional wired approach is least affected by the radio interference, achieves high security and reliability but at the expense of harness complexities.