Student research highlight smart panel bodies for modular small satellites

Abstract

Traditional satellite technologies integrate solar panels, thermomechanical subsystems, power management, data processing, and harness subsystems in a late stage of design. This approach has become inefficient, but this limitation can easily be overcome with modern manufacturing technologies. This work proposes an innovative approach to embed power, signal processing, thermomechanical subsystems, and solar panels when required. The approach has been developed for the Modular Architecture for Satellites (ARAMIS), but it can easily be adapted to other architectures, missions and spacecraft sizes [1]–[3]. The ARAMIS project employs innovative panel bodies or tiles, fabricated in various structures of different types and sizes. They are used in many satellite configurations, including simple cube, larger cubes, solar arrays, and hexagonal shape, as shown in Figure 1.