Abstract
This paper describes the modelling and simulation of the Electrical Power Subsystem (EPS) of the Thermal Analysis Support and Environment Characterization Laboratory (TASEC-Lab). TASEC-Lab is a university experiment on board a sub-orbital platform. It is designed to measure the convection heat transfer in high-altitude balloon missions. The EPS provides, regulates, and distributes electric power to the different systems, parts, and sensors that compose the TASEC-Lab (e.g., On Board Computer (OBC), temperature and pressure sensors, cup anemometer, GPS, heaters... ). It mainly consists of a Li-ion battery and two DC-DC converters, and they have been characterized by conducting laboratory tests and fitting to experimental data. A real power consumption profile of the first TASEC-Lab’s mission (designed by Universidad Politecnica de Madrid) is used as input to simulate the EPS. The mathematical model is validated by comparison with experimental results.
Highlights
The TASEC-Lab project consists of a university experiment that has been recently flown (July 2021) in a stratospheric balloon
The work included in this paper describes how the Electrical Power Subsystem (EPS) of TASEC-Lab has been designed, simulated, and tested
Laboratory tests have been performed to model the behavior of the battery, the DC-DC converters, and the complete power system
Summary
The TASEC-Lab project consists of a university experiment that has been recently flown (July 2021) in a stratospheric balloon (see Figure 1a). The environmental conditions above 20 km (which are very similar to those in space) together with the economical advantages and the possibility of recovering the payload after the flight, make these platforms a suitable way to this purpose They are used as testing platforms, and as scientific platforms themselves. Staff from the IDR/UPM Institute have been responsible for the thermal control system and they have been in in charge of the thermal design and analysis [3] Their work during these years arises some limitations when modelling the convective heat transfer during the flight, which motivates the analysis of this phenomenon using stratospheric balloon platforms. This kind of missions are usually analysed as space mission does.
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