Design and Implementation of High Reliability Electrical Power System for 2U NutSat

Abstract

This article proposes the design and implementation of an electrical power system (EPS) for 2U CubeSat using a single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) along with the perturbed and observe method for the maximum power point tracking (MPPT). SEPIC converters have the advantages of input current continuity, voltage boosting and bucking, short-circuit protection, low-side driver, and noninverted input and output voltages. When the battery voltage is too low, by adding a low power consumption latching relay to develop a novel topology, the battery can be directly charged with solar panels without the MPPT algorithm and to improve the system reliability. In addition to the on-board computer subsystem, we can independently control whether to turn on the power according to the battery capacity and importance priority for each subsystem of CubeSat. The satellite is operated in outer space that the environment is wide temperature variation, vacuum, and high electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, the satellite was subjected to various types of tests, such as vacuum, thermal cycling, and radiation tests, to verify the system's capacity for enduring the aforementioned environmental changes. Finally, implementations and various tests were carried out to verify the viability and the accuracy, and reliability of the EPS of the satellite.