Experimental evaluation of thermoelectric generators for nanosatellites application

Abstract

Energy generation is a crucial need for every kind of space vehicle, including CubeSats, a type of nanosatellite. Nowadays, the main component used to generate electric power is the solar panel. However, due to area restriction and solar panel low efficiency, other technologies are being studied to improve the overall power generation capacity in CubeSats. This paper presents an experimental study of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) for electric energy generation through temperature gradients from solar panels in CubeSats. The generation capacity is analyzed for different positioning configurations of the TEG relative to each CubeSat surface. In addition, TEG performance is evaluated considering two different kinds of energy harvesting circuits, responsible for storing and managing the generated energy. Using temperature variation profiles obtained by numerical analysis for a real CubeSat mission, it was possible to determine the amount of power generated by a TEG module from the heat waste from solar panels. As a result, a comparison process between TEG and solar panel generation systems themselves was conducted. It was verified that the proposed system can generate up to 9.62% of the energy generated by the conventional solution, considering energy harvesting storing efficiency of 10%.