Automatika

Journal for Control, Measurement, Electronics, Computing and

Communications

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CubeSat project: experience gained and design

methodology adopted for a low-cost Electrical
Power System

Kamel Djamel Eddine Kerrouche, Abderrahmane Seddjar, Nassima

Khorchef, Sidi Ahmed Bendoukha, Lina Wang & Abdelkader Aoudeche

To cite this article: Kamel Djamel Eddine Kerrouche, Abderrahmane Seddjar, Nassima Khorchef,
Sidi Ahmed Bendoukha, Lina Wang & Abdelkader Aoudeche (2022) CubeSat project: experience
gained and design methodology adopted for a low-cost Electrical Power System, Automatika, 63:4,
695-717, DOI: 10.1080/00051144.2022.2065420

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00051144.2022.2065420

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AUTOMATIKA
2022, VOL. 63, NO. 4, 695–717
https://doi.org/10.1080/00051144.2022.2065420

REGULAR PAPER

CubeSat project: experience gained and design methodology adopted for a

low-cost Electrical Power System
Kamel Djamel Eddine Kerrouche a,b , Abderrahmane Seddjar a , Nassima Khorchef a , Sidi Ahmed
Bendoukha a , Lina Wang b and Abdelkader Aoudeche c
a Satellites Development Center, Algerian Space Agency, Oran, Algeria; b School of Automation on Science and Electrical Engineering,
Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA)), Beijing, China; c Centre d’Exploitation des Services de
Télécom, Agence Spatiale Algerienne, Alger, Algeria

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper focuses on experimented space projects run by universities, offering an effective Received 28 December 2020
design process to improve learning methods in space engineering. The approach used for the Accepted 7 April 2022
design of CubeSat Electrical Power System (EPS) will go through estimations, sizing, simula- KEYWORDS
tions, PCB design and end with an experimental test procedure for design validation. The main CubeSat; Electrical Power
design criteria presented in this paper are low costs and effective reliability. To meet the first System (EPS); MicroController
criterion, the Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components are used during the design, which Unit (MCU); power budget;
has become an effective path to put experimental payloads in orbit for minimal cost. In the Power Regulation Unit (PRU);
second criterion, the function of some critical EPS components was replicated, such as circuits Power Storage Unit (PSU);
used for power maximization and battery charge regulation, by following a suitable algorithm solar panels; battery
embedded in MCU and hot/cold redundant analog integrated circuits. However, the choice was
made on the state of the art of CubeSat components already tested. This approach of working
will help new space engineers to think about optimal solutions for the design of the appropri-
ate EPS for a CubeSat university project achievable on a limited budget. Finally, the necessary
experiments of the designed EPS were carried out and the results were illustrated in the context
below.

1. Introduction Deployer (PPOD), which can be loaded with three-1U

This last decade has seen a significant development of CubeSat, one 2U and one 1U or one 3U nanosatellite.
small and nanosatellites launched and put into orbit. While 6U or 12U nanosatellite are generally designed
These nanosatellites are mostly designed, built, tested, for deployment from International Space Station (ISS)
and operated according to the CubeSat standard, which via NanoRacks [5]. Compared with large-scale satellites
was developed in 2000 by California Polytechnic State projects, CubeSats are low-cost for the launch and the
University and Stanford University [1]. A nanosatel- hardware, with a short period of development and fast
lite with the dimensions of one, two, up to three cubes delivery [6].
that can be built and launched is named, a single Cube- Such satellites are more appropriate in universities
Sat (denoted 1U), a double CubeSat (denoted 2U), or a and have become an operative tool in astronautical sci-
triple CubeSat (denoted 3U), respectively. To offer more ences, space engineering education, and training. This
flexible mission profiles (interplanetary missions, com- is a good initiative for new engineers and universities
munication, astrochemistry, and astrobiology research related to space engineering, with the cooperation of
with larger payload), a sextuple CubeSat (denoted 6U) different start-up space companies, on the one hand,
up to 12U nanosatellite is nowadays being considered, to design and develop nanosatellite projects that can be
while preserving the advantages offered by standardiza- adopted by certain developing countries. On the other
tion, by varying the profile of the CubeSats deployed hand, the successful development of these nanosatel-
into orbits [2,3]. Space agencies, especially NASA, are lites, technologies, and associated methods would allow
experimenting with using CubeSats to deal with scien- for easier access to space, creation or development of
tific problems, such as 6U nanosatellites launched in inexperienced aerospace sectors, leading to new mar-
2018 towards Mars for a telecommunications exper- kets and applications [7,8]. While the developed space-
iment [4]. CubeSats are placed in their orbits using frame must follow the CubeSat design specifications,
a closed deployer, such as Poly PicoSatellite Orbital as well as meet the customer’s needs [9]. Intelligent

CONTACT Kamel Djamel Eddine Kerrouche [email protected] Satellites Development Center, POS 50 ILOT T12 Bir El Djir, Oran 31130, Algeria
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
696 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

− Testing and understanding first-hand designs,

technologies, and prototypes,
− Validation and test of new components,
− Obtain comprehensive housekeeping data for sub-
system evaluation [21],
− Implication of radio amateur society for receiving
beacons from nanosatellites.

Figure 1. Categories of launched nanosatellites. The increased launch of nanosatellites is due to

the rapid advances in miniature technologies, which
have made several low-cost Commercial-Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) subsystems and components available in areas
manufacturing with shared and efficient transfer of such as telecommunications, data handling, and acqui-
technological advancements will continuously ensure sition, power electronics, and instrumentation. The
and satisfy the market trends regarding nanosatellites subsystems and components selection criteria also take
components [10]. It should be noted that the active into consideration the space environment tests results
pursuit and development of small launchers is one and heritage of earlier space missions, while main-
of the reasons for the reduction in launch costs and taining subsystems’ low-cost [22,23]. Therefore, in
the opportunities for nanosatellite flights. Many ini- nanosatellites projects, components’ selection is based
tiatives and the first successful result took place in on low-cost COTS technology with considering the
January 2018: on its second flight, Rocket Lab’s Elec- volume constraints and the limitations of the budget.
tron rocket reached orbit and deployed three CubeSats Generally, the nanosatellite subsystems are considered
[11,12]. to be assembled by publicly available COTS compo-
For countries with emerging technology sectors, nents in many markets and using fast manufacturing
nanosatellites can raise private business development services to reduce the duration of the project (such as
with reasonably small capital investments, or offer CNC machines and 3D printers) [24].
growth markets for remaining companies. Moreover, One of the crucial parts of any satellite mission is the
in these countries, a nanosatellite development pro- Electrical Power System (EPS), which is responsible for
gramme at university is an ideal first step to estab- power conversion from solar panels, energy storage in
lish such a basic capacity. Experience gained through batteries, and power distribution to other subsystems.
on-the-job training, working through the complete Therefore, together with the system backplane, an EPS
project phases from designing, assembling, and test- prototype designed for the nanosatellite project has the
ing a satellite, is decisive to gain this industrial space following principal functions:
capacity [13–16]. For developed countries, nanosatel-
lite projects are focusing on learning methodology and − Power source regulation,
training students; to do similar work to that estab- − Power storage,
lished in different companies and space agencies. In − Power distribution.
the preliminary phases of a satellite project, experts
in each of the space areas come from, for example, The secondary functions of the EPS are:
the ESA Concurrent Design Facilities (CDF), CNES,
Airbus Defense and Space, to supervise students at a − Telemetry measurements and conditioning,
limited time for the development of a feasibility phase − Control of antenna’s deployment system,
of space missions [17–19]. According to the statistics − Over-current protection.
presented in Figure 1, in 2019, about 438 nanosatel-
lites were launched, of which commercial companies Usually, the EPS of nanosatellites has several circuit
and universities have launched a significant number configurations that can mainly be divided into two
of nanosatellites compared to governmental institu- types; the Direct Energy Transfer (DET) circuit and the
tions [20]. Peak Power Transfer (PPT) circuit [25,26]. All further
Some objectives of University Nanosatellite Projects configurations are dissimilarities, derivations, or com-
were identified incrementally: binations of these two types. Before looking closer at
how such a DET or PPT systems work, the orbit and the
− Teaching students and future space engineers with mission constraints should be considered. A DET sys-
theoretical as well as efficient hands-on experience tem is generally designed for high-power satellites with
in satellites design and manufacturing, large solar panels in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO)
− Real experience in satellite control and payload applications, where the characteristics of the solar pan-
operations, els do not change significantly with approximately the
− Low-cost space applications, same temperature, as the sunlight period is longer than
 AUTOMATIKA 697

the eclipse period. The DET circuit is a shunt regula-

tor that dissipates excessive power to heat within the
circuit. However, some of the thermal problems are
encountered with the use of DET systems, where exces-
sive energy is dissipated inside the satellite, which can
affect the efficiency and reliability of the EPS. Besides, a
PPT technique is mostly designed for LEO applications,
which is based on a system for targeting the maximum
power extraction from the solar array without power
dissipation. Yet another advantage of the PPT system
is that the battery can be charged at maximum power
for several minutes, it can be directly connected to the
load for maximum efficiency, after each eclipse, when
the PhotoVoltaic (PV) array is cold.
In the literature, some universal surveys on Nanosat-
ellites/CubeSats have focused on mission character-
istics, implemented technologies and overall success
rates [2,3]. However, design methods and testing pro-
cesses have rather been discussed to be useful for Cube-
Sat university projects only. Therefore, the main contri-
bution of this paper is to present suitable EPS design
(components sizing and selection) and test procedures.
The reliable PPT circuit is used based on the Maxi-
mum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm com-
bined with Battery Charge Regulation (BCR) method,
which is implemented in MicroController Unit (MCU)
and a redundant analogue circuit. While, in case of
MCU failure, the redundant MPPT and BCR, which is
available in analogue Integrated Circuit (IC), is used for
power optimization, charge regulator, and overvoltage
protection of the battery.
Some requirements that should be considered for the Figure 2. Design process for EPS of CubeSat.
EPS design are:

− EPS power capability shall cover the mission power Based on the above flowchart, the remainder of this
budget in nominal cases, during an eclipse and paper is structured as follows:
high-power consumption periods, In section 2, a mission analysis including the power
− Lasts during the mission lifetime, budget of the proposed CubeSat is presented. For the
− Reliability and robustness against harsh space envi- preliminary design of this engineering prototype, the
ronment. power consumption of the subsystems is estimated
from the associated design reports and datasheets,
The summary of the EPS design process for the CubeSat which will be then used for sizing the EPS parts.
engineering model is presented in the diagram shown Section 3 is dedicated to the proposed EPS components
in Figure 2, which reports the basic EPS design steps as (solar panel, power regulator, battery, power storage,
a process as well as its parts’ characteristic results. The and microcontroller) configuration design for CubeSat.
suggested design tasks should be used as tools to prop- Then, in section 4, the preliminary and the detailed
erly develop separately each EPS unit (PV Panel, Power design based on simulations are presented to check the
Regulation Unit (PRU), Power Storage Unit (PSU), and sizing parameters and components selection of each
MCU) aiming to reduce the time and cost of the Cube- EPS unit. The experimental verification of the designed
Sat university project. Based on this design process, EPS units is presented in section 5. The power pro-
the development of the EPS will follow sequential steps duction calculations from the proposed solar generator,
from analysis, sizing, design, implementation and test- used in the preliminary design previously presented,
ing. While the feedbacks of certain steps are allowed for can be iteratively corrected and tuned, based on the
a possible adaptation of the design or parameters. This experimental testing of the proposed assembled PV
design process must carry on until reaching suitable panel. In section 6, the cost of each EPS component is
characteristics of EPS main parts with some essential evaluated. The conclusion and outcomes of this work
changes [14]. are discussed in the last section.
698 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Table 2. Power consumption of subsystems.

Subsystems Minimum Power Maximum Power
EPS 300 mW 400 mW
OBDH 130 mW 200 mW
TT & C 200 mW 2000 mW
ADCS 175 mW 1000 mW
Payload (Testing camera) 450 mW 450 mW

Table 3. Power of different mission modes.

Modes Minimum power Maximum power Duration
Figure 3. 1U CubeSat structure [27]. Common mode 605 mW 705 mW 79,46 min
Mission mode 1125 mW 2050 mW 5 min
Communication mode 875 mW 3600 mW 5 min

Table 1. Mission parameters.

Mission Payload Imaging Camera supply the subsystems that have been defined as:
Mission Duration One-year
Orbit LEO/SSO 10:30 (LTDN)
Altitude (Km) 500 − On-Board Data Handling (OBDH),
Semi-major axis (Km) 6878.14 − Communication system (Transceiver (Tx) and
Eccentricity (e) 0
Revolution Period T (mn) 94.72 Receiver (Rx)),
Eclipse Period (mn) 35.17 − Attitude Determination & Control System (ADCS),
Number of Orbits per day 15
Ground stationBeihang University 39.9824° N, 116.3488° E
− Payload (low power camera for a test).
Satellite Visibility Period (mn)9,04
The power consumption of these above-defined subsys-
tems is shown in Table 2.
The power consumed by the EPS represents the
2. Mission analysis and power budget
losses when supplying the subsystems and charging
The studied nanosatellite is 1U CubeSat that has dimen- the battery. In this study, there are also three different
sions of 10cm of width, 10cm of length, and 10cm of mission power modes (see Table 3), defined as follows:
height. The mass is not exceeding 1.33Kg. The CubeSat Common mode: the CubeSat is in orbit with no
surface is covered with solar cells and different sur- operational payload and communication; sleep OBDH,
face coatings. The structure of 1U CubeSat is shown in and low power consumption by ADCS. Therefore, in
Figure 3. The main mission of this CubeSat is to test a this mode, for the power budget calculation, OBDH is
camera for astronomical observation such as stars and activated with minimum power consumption, ADCS
phenomena in space (airglow). is activated with minimum power consumption. The
The chosen mission orbit is a Sun Synchronous EPS is supposed to consume, at the minimum and the
Orbit (SSO) with an altitude of 500km and an LTDN maximum in each common mode, respectively 300mW
of 10.30 AM. The orbit parameters are shown in during eclipse period and 400mW during sunlight
Table 1, which are obtained by calculations from the period.
developed model based on the literature [12]. As an Mission mode: the CubeSat fulfils its missions by
additional feature, those parameters have been com- exploiting its payload with the full activation of OBDH
pared with System Tool Kit (STK) results obtained in and the function of ADCS. Then in this mode, for
the numerical simulations. For the nanosatellite visi- the power budget calculation, OBDH is activated with
bility analysis, the ground station is supposed to be maximum power consumption. While the camera is
located at Beihang University (39.9824° N, 116.3488° processing, ADCS is activated with minimal power
E). On the one hand, if there is a problem at the consumption, and the CubeSat is in mission mode with
main ground station (Beihang University) that makes minimal power. Whereas the ADCS is at its maxi-
it unable to operate, backup ground stations can be mum power consumption when pointing the camera
used from which radio contact can be maintained. For for image acquisition at the target, and the CubeSat
the continuity of operations plan, commands can also is in mission mode with maximal power. The EPS
be authorized from these redundant ground stations. is supposed to consume, at the minimum and the
On the other hand, other stations in the amateur radio maximum in each mission mode, respectively 300mW
community may be allowed to listen to, download, during eclipse period and 400mW during sunlight
and decode CubeSat data. For this purpose, the fre- period.
quencies and operating modes of this CubeSat can be Communication mode: mission and telemetry data
published. are sent to the ground station and remote commands
The EPS is designed to meet the mission require- are received from the ground station. Therefore, in this
ments, survive during the mission lifetime, and to mode, for the calculation of the power budget, OBDH
 AUTOMATIKA 699

Figure 4. Mission power consumption profile, baseline scenario (worst-case).

is activated with maximum power consumption. While eclipse period. Pi , i = 1, 2, . . . .n, gives the typical power
ADCS is activated with minimum power consumption profile for subsystems and payload operation during
when receiving commands from the ground station one orbit. The efficiency factors are ηday (from PV pan-
and maximum power consumption when the Cube- els to loads) and ηecl (from batteries to loads). Accord-
Sat is pointed towards the ground station to downlink ing to the literature [30] and with the consideration of
data. The EPS is supposed to consume, at the mini- a PPT circuit, ηecl = 0.6 and ηday = 0.8 can be chosen.
mum and the maximum in each communication mode, However, due to the fact that the losses of the vari-
respectively 300mW during eclipse period and 400mW ous power converters have already been considered for
during sunlight period. power budget and that a margin of 20% will also be
The above mission power modes can be changed taken into account for the sizing, these coefficients are
even their power consumption (see Table 3). The deci- assumed to be equal to 1.
sion of which system is activated, how will work (max-
imum or minimum) and its activation period is subject
to many changes depending on the concept of opera- 3. Proposed EPS configuration design
tions and mission plan. However, in the design stage for
the initial start-up, a rough definition of a preliminary The EPS configuration is shown in Figure 5.
mission analysis is necessary to establish the design and
sizing of the EPS. Accordingly, after many iterations, the
worst-case power consumption will be considered for 3.1. Hardware design
the rest of the design and sizing calculation.
The CubeSat solar cells are mounted on five of the
According to ECSS standards and SMAD, a margin
six facets, every two solar panels from opposite sides
from 5% up to 20% or 25% has to be applied to meet the
are connected to one boost converter leading to three
mission power budget used for sizing depending on the
DC-DC power converters in total (see Figure 5). This
level of the design maturity [28,29]. Based on the differ-
proposed configuration presents a good compromise in
ent power consumption modes of the CubeSat, Figure 4
the use of converters, compared to the use of one con-
shows, during one orbit, the simulated baseline scenario
verter for each solar panel. In this configuration, only
of the power consumption profile with both 20% of the
one solar panel per pair can be straight illuminated by
margin and without margin. In this simulation, the mis-
the sun at any given time and will be the main power
sion mode and the two different communication modes
source. The second solar panel provides a small amount
(Tx and Rx) are taken into account, which means a
of power due to albedo illumination from the Earth.
worst-case orbit scenario.
A similar topology is used in commercial CubeSat EPS
The total energy required, during one orbit, from
from ClydeSpace, as presented in [31].
both solar panel and battery power sources is expressed
In the above topology (Figure 5), the configuration
in the following equation:
ensuring system reliability is adopted when: the loss of
Eorbit,need = Eday,need + Eecl,need a single DC-DC boost converter or damage to a solar
 k  ⎛ ⎞ panel does not disable the entire EPS, where the defec-
1  1 ⎝
n
tive part is electrically separated. This fault isolation is
= Pi ti + Pi ti ⎠
ηday i=1 ηecl guaranteed by the use of bypass diodes and blocking
i=k+1
diodes [32]. There is no requirement to regulate the
(1)
main bus, as the subsystems themselves will separately
Where Eday,need is the energy needed during the day- regulate their specific supply from their decentralized
light period, Eecl,need is the energy needed during the power distribution unit [33,34].
700 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Figure 5. Proposed EPS configuration for CubeSat with open solar panels structure.

Figure 6. Flowchart of the implemented control strategy.

Figure 7. AzurSpace PV cell characteristics influenced by tem-
perature: Curves of current and power versus voltage.
3.2. Software design
The power converters can be connected in parallel,
each of them being controlled with its algorithm based 4.1. Solar panels
on the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) and
For this proposed CubeSat, the triple-junction solar
Battery Charge Regulator (BCR) implemented in the
cells based on 3G30A technology InGaP/GaAs/Ge are
MicroController Unit (MCU). The proposed MPPT is
selected, which are provided by AzurSpace with an inte-
based on Perturb and Observe (P&O) technique that
grated bypass diode. The space-qualified solar cells have
is widely used for PV application [35,36]. To prevent
an efficiency of 29.6% and providing 2.409V of out-
overcharging and protect the battery, the BCR method
put voltage and 502.9mA of output current when the
is introduced with the MPPT algorithm. The imple-
Maximum Power Point (MPP) is reached [37]. The
mented software control strategy is presented in the
mathematical model of the solar cell used in this paper
flowchart shown in Figure 6.
can be found in [38–42]. The curves I(V) and P(V)
of the AzurSpace solar cell, under the constant irra-
diance condition of 1367W/m2 and different values of
4. EPS design and simulation verification
temperature, are shown in Figure 7.
In this section, by the conducted simulation based on From the characteristics shown in Figure 7, each
the real parameters, the selection and size of the EPS cell can produce MPP voltages in the interval of
components will be tested. [1.8V-2.3V]. For the proposed application, as shown in
 AUTOMATIKA 701

Figure 8. Proposed connection of solar cells for PV panel.

Figure 9. PV panel characteristics based on AzurSpace solar

cells influenced by temperature: Curves of current and power Figure 10. Generated power as a function of incident light
versus voltage. angles: (a) Ideal case;(b) Worst case.

The PCB prototype of the designed solar panel is

Figure 8, it was decided to use on each PV panel two
shown in Figure 11. This PCB contains two solar cells,
cells connected in series and then PV panels of two sides
as proposed in this study, where they are connected by
connected in parallel for one power converter.
two bypass diodes. The component U1 is a tempera-
The curves I(V) and P(V) of the solar panel based
ture sensor used for telemetry. The power and telemetry
on AzurSpace cells, under the constant condition of
data are connected to the EPS circuit by an eight-pin
light and different values of temperature, are shown in
header. A set of four holes for fastening the solar panel’
Figure 9.
PCB to an aluminium panel mounted on CubeSat inner
According to the characteristic shown in Figure 9,
holding structure (see Figure 11). The solar panels PCB
based on the series connection configuration (see
assembling is presented and well explained in [43].
Figure 8), the MPP voltages across the PV panel will
be varying in the interval of [3.6V-4.6V].5he rotation
around the horizontal plane is defined by variations of 4.2. Battery and Power Storage Unit
angle β. The total generated power by the solar panels
The power required to charge the battery is calculated
whatever the angle β or α (whatever the attitude of the
as the difference between the generated power to the
satellite) is shown in Figure 10.
mission required power in sunlight and eclipse periods
Figure 10(a) shows the generated power behaviour
(without margin):
dependent on the sun incident angles variation in nom-
inal mode. In such conditions, the maximum power Eacc = Eprod − Eday_needs = 2.27–1.05 = 1.22Wh (2)
that can be generated by the CubeSat is 4.14W, leading
to an average value of 2.64W. Whereas, in worst-case As a requirement, the accumulated power (Eacc =
conditions (Figure 10(b)), these values are 3.6W and 1.22Wh) has to be higher than the energy needed dur-
2.29W respectively, resulting in a 13% decrease in the ing the eclipse (Eecl_needs = 0.39Wh) to overcome any
available power. power consumption scenario. Otherwise, for the next
702 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Table 4. Review of the Space commercially available Li-ion cell

chemistries and their characteristics [44].
Chemical
Battery technology abbreviation Characteristics
Lithium man- LiMn2O4 Low cost, high discharge
ganese rate capability, good
oxide safety, low specific energy.
Lithium man- LiNiMnCoO2 Low cost, high specific
ganese energy, good discharge
nickel rate capability, low
resistance, good safety.
Lithium nickel LiNiCoAlO2 The highest specific energy
cobalt and cycle life, lower
aluminium oxide discharge rate capability,
good safety.
Lithium cobalt LiCoO2 Expensive, low specific
oxide energy, lower discharge
rate capability, poor safety.
Lithium iron LiFePO4 Highest discharge rate
phosphate capability, low specific
energy, excellent safety.

Figure 11. Solar panel PCB.

orbits, the CubeSat will not have sufficient power and

will not be capable to charge the battery as well. The
design and technological choice of the battery must
take into account many factors (electrical and environ-
mental). The most decisive factor is the capacity of the
battery, obtained using the following formula:

Eacc 100
C= (1 + Margin/100) ≈ 1Ah (3)
Vbat DoD Figure 12. Discharge characteristics of rechargeable LiFePO4
APR18650M1A battery.
Where Depth of Discharge (DoD) is recommended to
be 20% according to the mission lifetime based on exist-
ing literature [30]. Then, for the sizing of the battery LiFePO4 technology [46,49], the apparent voltage and
capacity, a margin of 20% in the total power budget is capacity of the battery were found to be less than its total
used, as the EPS is to be developed. capacity at −20°C compared to that at 25°C. As a result,
The battery technologies and their characteristics in this proposed design, the total battery capacity must
based on Li-Ion chemistries are summarized in Table 4. be doubled; this will balance the capacity reduction of
Chin et al. summarized in [44] descriptive COTS up to 50% when considering the temperature decrease.
battery technologies, as presented in Table 4, according The accumulators’ selection is based on charge and
to their maximum discharge rate capability and nomi- discharge conducted tests aimed to choose two accu-
nal capacity. In [45], performances of CubeSat battery mulators that have identical electric performance, as
technologies, expected in the LEO application, have adopted in [50].
been tested and compared. When using a Li-Ion battery Figure 12 illustrates the discharge characteristics of
based on the nanophosphate technology, it is important Lithium- Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4 ) APR18650M1A
to take into account the actual orbit conditions. It has battery, where, these characteristics can be distin-
been noticed, for Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4 ), guished into three zones. First, the exponential zone
that the degradation rate, especially at lower tempera- represents the battery voltage overshoot above the rated
tures, is much less than the other technologies and it value. Then, after the no-load mode, the operating
outperforms them. point of the battery is in the nominal zone for a period
In this project, the choice was focused on A123 Sys- of establishing a fixed discharge current value, where
tems’ LiFePO4 rechargeable APR18650M1A cell [46], the voltage is changed slightly. Finally, when the nom-
which has the highest discharge rate capability, excel- inal capacity of the battery is reached, it is followed
lent safety, long storage life, and has greater exploitation by the third operating zone, where the battery voltage
tolerance due to the use of this technology [47,48]. For decreases rapidly.
 AUTOMATIKA 703

Figure 13. Electrical schematic of the Power Storage Unit.

Figure 13 shows the schematic of the PSU.

In general, any Power Storage Unit (PSU) design
must be following space application standards, such as
ECSS-Q-40 [51]. In the proposed electrical schematic
shown in Figure 13, an ADP3310 IC is used as a redun-
dant analogue Battery Charge Regulator (BCR) and
analogue MPPT controller. In addition, a UCC3911
IC protection circuit is used against overcharge for
the two strings battery. While to meet ECSS standard
requirements [52], protection circuit must be taken into
account, which is ensured by bypass diode (D1, D2)
(MBR1635 Schottky-diodes from ON Semiconductor)
against any possible cell damage and electrical insula-
tion between cells to ensure a supply of electrical power
to the satellite’s subsystems.
The PCB prototype based on COTS components for
the designed PSU is shown in Figure 14.
Following the design principles used in CubeSat, the
“Plug and Play” method is first applied for PCB electri-
cal connections based on the PC104 standard [23,53]. Figure 14. Power Storage Unit’s PCB.
Then, a set of four holes is also provided for fixing the
PSU with the CubeSat structure, and other additional
704 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Table 6. Parameters of boost converter obtained from the high

and low duty cycle.
Parameters Low duty cycle High duty cycle
D 0,34 0.54
R(Ω) 10.52 12.5
IL (A) 0.963 1.225
 IL (A) 0.096 0.125
L (μH) 155.64 142.5
 Vdc2 (V) 0.132 0.144
 Vdc1 (V) 0.086 0.066
C2 (μF) 16.56 21.63
Figure 15. Electrical circuit of DC-DC boost converter con- C1 (μF) 5.6 9.5
nected with solar panels.

Table 5. Boost converter parameter expressions for high and Table 7. DMC verification of boost converter obtained for high
low duty cycles. and low duty cycle.
DCM in high duty cycle DCM in low duty cycle
Low duty cycle High duty cycle
Vpv 1 Vpv Vpv Vpv
Vpv,max Vpv,min R (1−Dmax )2 > R Dmax Ts ⇔ 1
R (1−Dmax )2 > R Dmax Ts ⇔
Dmin = 1 − Dmax = 1 −
Vout,min Vout,max
2L
2
Vout,min 2
Vout,max RTs > Dmin (1 − Dmin )2 2L
RTs > Dmin (1 − Dmin )2
Rmin = Rmax = 1.14 > 0.114 1.48 > 0.148
Pout Pout
Vout,min 1 Vout,max 1
IL = IL =
Rmin 1 − Dmin Rmax 1 − Dmax
IL,min IL (%) IL,min IL (%)
IL,min = IL,max = Both input and output voltages ripple V are fixed
100 100
1 Vpv,max 1 Vpv,min at 2% according to [52]. During the sunlight period,
Lmin = (Dmin Ts ) Lmax = (Dmax Ts )
2 IL,min 2 IL,max the PV solar panels supply the main power bus via the
Vout,min Vout (%) Vout,max Vout (%) boost converter; therefore, two characteristics can be
Vout,min = Vout,max =
100 100
Vout,min Vout,max distinguished:
C1,min = Dmin C1,max = Dmax
8Lmin Vout,min F 2 8Lmax Vout,max F 2
C2,min =
Vout,min
Dmin Ts C2,max =
Vout,max
Dmax Ts
• Input characteristics: from the connection of the PV
2Vout,min Rmin 2Vout,max Rmax panel previously described, considering the voltage
drop in the diode, which can reach the maximum
voltages included in the interval between 3.3–4.3V
holes are used for fixing the battery (two accumulators)
(with the consideration of the voltage drop over the
with the PCB of the PSU. The design rules for this PCB
blocking diode).
comply with ECSS and IEEE standards [54,55].
• Output characteristics: In the main power bus, the
voltage level varies slowly between 6.6-7.2V due to
4.3. Power Regulation Unit the changes in the battery charge condition.
The electrical circuit of the boost converter is shown in
The highest input power is estimated at 4.14W for the
Figure 15.
ideal case without taking into account the degradation.
In this electrical circuit of DC-DC boost converter
Based on the previous expressions of the boost con-
(Figure 15), L is the inductance, the power switch M is
verter (Table 5), the calculated parameters are presented
the MOSFET transistor, and D is the diode. C1 and C2
in Table 6.
are the input and the output capacitors.
When calculating the boost converter parameters,
Based on the electrical circuit shown in Figure 15,
the larger value is chosen as design philosophy, to toler-
the boost converter can be modelled by a unique system
ate the components to withstand the span of the whole
of equations; considering the perfect switches assump-
Duty cycle (D) values. This condition must be fulfilled
tion, the instantaneous model is given by [56]:
to avoid Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM).
diL Therefore, in this design procedure, the DCM is verified
vpv = L + vout (1 − U) (4) for the chosen D as shown in Table 7.
dt
dvout vout The simulation results of the boost converter with
iL (1 − U) = C2 + (5) high and low duty cycles are shown in Figure 16.
dt R
From the results obtained by simulation with a high
Where U = 1 the switch M is closed and U = 0 is open. duty cycle, it is observed that during the steady-state,
The expressions of the inductor current, the resis- the current value is approximately 0.57A and the volt-
tance, the inductance, and the capacitances of the input age value is approximately 7.2V. Moreover, for the simu-
and output capacitors are resumed in Table 5; all expres- lation results obtained with a low duty cycle, it is noticed
sions are based on a small ripple approximation calcu- that the current is 0.62A and the voltage is 6.5V. It can
lation during a switching period Ts . also be seen that the converter never goes in DCM even
 AUTOMATIKA 705

Figure 16. Simulation of the boost converter with high duty

cycle and low duty cycle: (Dashed line) Output currents; (Solid
line with dots) Output voltages.

in the startup with the high over-shoot for both low and
high duty cycles.
Based on the proposed EPS architecture shown in
Figure 5, the electrical circuit design schematic corre-
sponding to the Power Regulation Unit, boost converter Figure 18. Power Regulation Unit’s PCB.
based, is shown in Figure 17, which is then used to
work out the PCB design with appropriate component
footprints in Figure 18. Schottky diodes (MBR1635 from “On Semiconduc-
The electrical schematic shown in Figure 17 is built tor”) are used. The solar panels are connected using 2
by the COTS components [57], established on results pins connectors. The header PC104 ensures the power,
reported in Table 6. The MOSFET IRFZ24NS/L from measurements, and control lines [58].
“International Rectifier” is selected, which is driven
by TC4420 power driver from “Microchip”. The input
4.4. MicroController Unit
and output voltages measurements are ensured by the
voltage divider. While the input currents are measured First, the software design to be implemented in the
by the high-side shunt monitor INA138 from “Texas MicroController Unit (MCU) is quite critical and
Instrument”. To reduce the effect of the voltage drop, must be carefully defined. In this application, the

Figure 17. Electrical schematic of the Power Regulator Unit-based boost converters.
706 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Figure 19. Flowchart of power regulation algorithm based on MPPT and BCR implemented in MCU.

1
coded algorithm is based on the Maximum Power Where Fboost_converter = ts_boost_converter is related to the
Point Tracking (MPPT) and Battery Charge Regula- boost converter switching speed which depends on the
tion (BCR) technique. The flowchart of this algorithm transient response and its settling time responding to
is shown in Figure 19. a step input. The boost converter switching speed is
The proposed MPPT is based on Perturb and about 200Hz deduced from Figure 16. The MPP volt-
Observe (P&O) method, where it disturbs the duty age is likely to vary from 3.6–4.6V during one min-
cycle by slight increments of operating voltage and imum/maximum cycle; thus, two changes are found
observes the variation of power. Then, when the vari- for each 360° turn cycle (one for each solar panel).
ation of power is positive, it means that the operating The maximum and minimum duty cycle is likely to be
voltage is moving to the MPP. At that time, in the same 0.34 and 0.54, respectively, (see section boost sizing and
direction as the observed power, a new voltage pertur- design). According to [60], the nanosatellite maximum
bation will be created. When the algorithm observes speed (Fnanosatellite ) will be about 3 rounds per minute.
a negative power change, the perturbation will move The MCU PIC16F877A hardware is chosen for
back to the previous operating voltage to retain it at the the software implementation of the power regulation
MPP. On the other hand, due to the resistance insta- algorithm presented in Figure 19. In addition to the
bility of the PV panel, the MPP can oscillate during space heritage and low cost [61–63], this MCU comes
the time [59]. The software BCR technique consists to with many technical features that make it a good design
limit the battery voltage at rated value, as hot redun- trade-off, such as:
dancy, to prevent battery overcharge so that extending
its lifetime. − A built-in Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC)
This control strategy requires some input variables also satisfy the current and voltage sensors num-
(current and voltages), output variables (Duty cycle ber, so no need to add multiplexers or external
(D)), and adequate parameters adaptation (D step size). ADC [61,62].
Therefore, for the MPPT algorithm, certain considera- − An appropriate built-in module for Pulse Width
tions must be taken into account to define the D inter- Modulation (PWM) to control the boost convert-
val between measurement points and the frequency at ers,
which the algorithm should be executed. Since the pro- − The third feature is the existence of the I2 C com-
posed MPPT algorithm assumes a stable input current, munication protocol, which is the reason behind
it cannot make a new measurement, until the converter choosing the PIC16F877A for the communication
is stabilized. So that, a minimum step size (d) has to be interface with OBDH,
calculated following MPP variation as given below: − It also contains a full-speed and low-speed com-
dFboost_converter > ncycles Fnanosatellite (Dmax − Dmin ) patible RS-232 Serial Interface Engine (SIE) that
allows fast communication between an external
⇒ d > 10−4 (6) host device and the PIC MCU [64].
 AUTOMATIKA 707

Figure 20. Simulation of MCU circuit programmed with MPPT and BCR functions.

Figure 21. Simulation of MCU failure case: Boost converter driven by PWM signal from analogue MPPT selected by the arbitrating
system.

Figure 20 details the conducted simulation of the pro- Figure 19). In Figure 20, the current and voltage mea-
posed MCU circuit with the implementation of a power surements are performed to efficiently control and reg-
regulation algorithm based on MPPT and BCR (see ulate the power; therefore, the voltage divider can be
708 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Figure 22. EPS design ETB: (a): (1): Computer; (2): Voltmeter; (3): Battery and Power Storage Unit; (4): MCU; (5): Power Regulation Unit;
(6): Programmer and Debugging system; (7): Oscilloscope; (8) Power supply; (b): (9) Lighting system; (10): Assembled solar panel.

Figure 23. Line-up test block diagram of all EPS parts.

used for this purpose to send the corresponding sig- gain ten times higher to reach the required value. As
nal of the required voltages to the MCU. The reason shown in the block diagram of Figure 5, meanwhile
is that the maximum voltage that the microcontroller their similarity, the simulation test is performed on one
can deal with is up to five volts [65]. The voltage and part only compromising two solar panels connected to
current sensors are used to determine the solar panel one boost converter (C1) to generate only one PWM
output power, which is a key element for the MPPT signal (CRTL-MPPT-C1). When the MCU is work-
algorithm, as well as to determine the battery charging ing well, the three pins (RD0, RD1, and RD2) send
mode. These sensors have to be accurate to guaran- the high logic level (ADRS-C1 = ADRS-C2 = ADRS-
tee efficient performances. The current sensors INA138 C3 = 5V) to indicate the health of the MCU and allow
(highlighted by dashed frame (1, 2, 3, and 4)) shown in full MPPT control of the three boost converters (C1, C2,
Figure 20 are used to convert the current flow from the and C3).
PV panels to its corresponding voltage (up to 5V) [66]. Two types of control signals (PWM) will be used for
In some cases, a small voltage can be measured at the boost converters; one from the MCU and another
the sensor’s output, but not enough for current sens- generated by the IC DP3810 (see Figure 13). A sort of
ing; hence, an amplification circuit based on Op-Amp selection/arbitration system is needed to decide which
as a non-inverting amplifier has to be added with a MPPT signal will drive the converter. In case of MCU
 AUTOMATIKA 709

Table 8. Truth table of arbitrating system for cold redundancy. non-destructively identified. This type of crack most
Outputs Address MPPT likely occurred during the manufacturing process and
X0, Y0 and Z0 to X, Y (ADRS_C1 = A = 0), Analogue would not be detected in the I-V curves obtained by
and Z (ADRS_C2 = B = 0) And illumination tests (Section V. A.2) as they do not result
(ADRS_C3 = C = 0)
X1,Y1 and Z1 to X,Y (ADRS_C1 = A = 1), Digital
in a significant drop in cell performance. With time
and Z (ADRS_C2 = B = 1) mission and temperature variations, these cracks are
And(ADRS_C3 = C = 1) likely to spread and cause degradation in performance.
In this experimentation, a voltage is supplied to a
failure, cold redundancy is used for the MPPT tech- solar cell gradually increased in a forward bias configu-
nique. As shown in Figure 21, the decision was made ration until the cell lights up. Figure 24 shows the results
to use the 6- > 3 multiplexer as an arbitrating system of the EL testing for solar cells and solar panel.
based on the IC 74HCT4052, controlled by the MCU. As shown in Figure 24(a), electroluminescence is
When the MCU hangs or crashes and will be unable to caused on the solar cell when the supplied voltage has
control the multiplexer, the address to the multiplexer reached 2.3V and the current has been set to 100mA.
is changed and the analogue MPPT (ADP3810) signal Then, the same test was performed on a solar panel
is switched (see the truth table on Table 8) to control the composed of two cells, as shown in Figure 24(b), where
boost converter. this time the solar panel starts to light up when the
supplied voltage reaches 4.6V and the current has been
set to 100mA. Usually, the dark spots reveal damage to
5. EPS experimental verification the solar cells while the low light alerts on the degra-
This section describes the experimental testing flow dation of the solar cells before the integration process.
conducted on each part of the designed EPS (namely: Degraded solar cells have a lower intensity EL signal
Solar panel, PSU, PRU, and MCU) to verify the effec- confirming partial cell shading. The EL test can also
tiveness of the proposed design procedures using reveal microcracks that do not significantly affect the
the Electrical Test Bed (ETB) as shown in ON/OFF output power of the solar panel (obtained by an illu-
devices/switches (SW1 to SW7), which are used to per- mination test) but could over time cause serious dam-
mit testing each EPS part separately (Figure 22). age. Following the visual inspections of Figure 24(a,b)
obtained by the EL tests, the solar cells are very well
lighting, which means they are in good working con-
5.1. Solar panels test
dition and can also be used for the CubeSat flight
Solar panels testing is a process aimed to determine model. In addition, according to Figure 24(a,b), by
any mechanical damage or electrical degradation that visual checks, there is no presence of microcracks,
may avoid the use of the item as a flight module follow- which confirms that the solar cells used have excellent
ing ECSS requirements [67]. The process is conducted performance without degradation.
at cell level as well as panel level depending on the
manufacturing phase. 5.1.2. Illumination test
A visual inspection is firstly done on each solar cell to The test aims to analyze the electrical performances and
spot out any damages, such as cracks or portion defects. to generate the characteristic curves (I(V) and P(V))
The solar cells that pass the test are then selected for of the solar panel. The proposed illumination test of
additional testing discussed below. the solar panel is shown in Figure 23. According to
the schematic diagram test, only the switch SW4 must
5.1.1. Electroluminescence Test be set ON to connect the solar panel to the variable
To perform the Electroluminescence (EL) test on the electrical load.
solar panel, the switch SW1 is turned ON to con- The I(V) curves are the most helpful tool used
nect the regulated power supply to the solar panel (see to identify the cell and panel characteristics. These
Figure 23). For this purpose, each cell was exposed to include, in particular, but are not limited to, short
the EL testing throughout the integration process. The circuit current, open-circuit voltage, maximum power
EL test is a qualitative inspection conducted on large output, spectral response, fill factor, series resistance,
photovoltaic cells [68]. The experiment is based on the and temperature coefficients. Measuring solar panels
same principle as a Light Emitting Diode (LED); it is requires a stable light source that closely matches the
a practical and non-destructive method of solar cell’s sunlight’s conditions. The test bench used to carry out
visual assessment for the effects of the damage. This the initial measurements, (Figure 22(b)) is built with
test provides a wealth of data about any manufactur- an available low-cost Tungsten-Halogen lamp [69], as
ing defects or handling damages spotted out via the area a source of light of 500W, placed just 25cm over the
uniformity of solar cells. EL test is very effective in iden- PV solar panel. This short distance is well defined, to
tifying each cell mismatch in PV solar panels as cracks, improve the illumination non-uniformity and to leave
portion defects, and material variations are quickly and a distance to avoid the heating of solar cells because at
710 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Figure 24. EL testing: (a) one solar cell, (b) one solar panel.

The PSU and the included battery have been verified

under the following test conditions:

− Ambient temperature of 28C°,

− Charging/Discharging current: 3300mA (one and
half of capacity),
− Constant Charging voltage: 7.2V,
− Charging/Discharging time: around 40min.

The PSU experimental testing measurements are plot-

ted to demonstrate the charging and discharging char-
acteristics as seen in Figure 26.
Figure 25. Solar panel characterization obtained from illumi- It should be noted that during the charging, the
nation test. battery voltage is accurately controlled to not exceed
the voltage nominal value. So that, a protection cir-
cuit incorporated in the PSU is used for this purpose.
the same time the PV panel is exposed to light and heat; When discharging the battery, the result obtained from
the absorptivity of the PV panel is very high ( ≤ 0.91). this test is similar to that obtained by simulation (see
Therefore, the PV cells’ temperature rises to achieve Figure 12). However, the protection circuit disconnects
60°C. The I(V) and P(V) characteristics of the assem- the batteries at Vbat = 6.1V, then the batteries were
bled solar panel obtained from the illumination test are forced to discharge below this value to stop the test at
shown in Figure 25. 4.0V (cut-off voltage).
As shown in Figure 25, the power characteristic of The battery voltage level and the voltage of the elec-
the solar panel reached the maximum of 680mW at the trical circuits are presented in Figure 27.
voltage of 3.6V, and the current short circuit reached the From Figure 27, when the battery voltage level is at
value of 200mA under a temperature of about 60°C and 6.63V, it is shown that the regulator used in the PSU
the irradiance of 500W. From this experiment, it can ensures that the voltage of the electric circuit is working
be noticed that the designed solar panel can produce well, which gives the accepted voltage level, which is 5V
enough energy at low irradiance and can also produce to power the MCU and other circuits.
more at higher irradiance.

5.2. Power Storage Unit test 5.3. Power Regulator Unit test
The proposed experiment for testing the PSU is pre- The proposed experiment for testing the PRU is shown
sented in Figure 23. To perform this test, according to in Figure 23. To perform this test, according to the test
the schematic block diagram, only the switches SW2 in the schematic diagram, the switches only SW2 and
and SW5 need to be set ON to connect the regulated SW6 or SW2 and SW7 need to be set ON to connect the
power supply to the PSU during the charging process, regulated power supply to the PRU and for the connec-
and connect the variable electrical load to the PSU tion of the MCU used to generate the PWM signal. The
during the discharging process. switches SW6 and SW7 have similar signal generation
 AUTOMATIKA 711

Figure 26. Experimental tests of the batteries: (a) charging characteristic; (b) discharging characteristic.

Figure 27. Charged battery level: (a) Battery voltage, (b) Voltage of electrical circuits.

functions and are used for connection with PRU to needs to be set ON to connect the MCU for PWM sig-
ensure PWM signal generation. nal generation to the PRU. The oscilloscope is always
Based on the simulation of the boost converter (see connected to display and measure the generated PWM
Figure 21) with the available values of the real electronic signals from the MCU.
components, in this experimentation section the input The code of the proposed control strategy (MPPT
voltages (see Figure 28) are updated slightly to be 3.6V and BCR) was first compiled by MPLAB-X-IDE soft-
and 4.35V, respectively for high and low duty cycles (see ware and then uploaded to the MCU using Pikit3
Figure 29). The high and low duty cycle output voltages hardware. The PWM output signals obtained by the
are shown in Figure 30. MCU are shown in Figure 31. The oscilloscope plots
According to the experimental results obtained in (Figure 31) confirm that the MCU executed the task
Figure 28 and Figure 30, the values of the output volt- without difficulties (low and high PWM signals) and
ages for the low and high duty cycles are 6.55V and this revealed that the MCU, as well as the development
7.12V, respectively. Also note that the voltage signal rip- tool and the code downloader, did perform their tasks
ples, for the low and high duty cycles, are very weak. very well. The PWM signal generated by the MCU is
In addition, it can be seen that the boost converter similar to that obtained by simulation and to that gen-
designed with dimensioned parameters avoids DCM erated by the signal generator equipment; therefore, the
and even at start-up there is no overshoot, for both software implemented in the MCU meets the design
low and high duty cycles. As a result, these output volt- requirements.
ages are almost similar to those obtained by simulation
(Figure 16), confirming that the sizing parameters used
in the design meet the EPS requirements in terms of 6. EPS cost evaluation
voltage level and low voltage ripples. Cost is always the main critical factor in any design pro-
cess, as it applies to a CubeSat project. The cost analysis
determines a critical gap in the estimation of the costs
5.4. MCU test
of nanosatellites, from the literature [70,71], which
The proposed experiment for testing the MCU is shown was observed by comparison between two cost mod-
in Figure 23. To perform this experiment, according to els, the Small Satellite Cost Model (SSCM < 50kg) and
the test in the schematic diagram, only the switch SW6 the NASA/Air Force Cost Model (NAFCOM). Each of
712 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

Figure 28. (a) Input voltage 3.6V, (b) Input voltage 4.35V.

Figure 29. (a) High duty cycle PWM signal, (b) Low duty cycle PWM signal.

Figure 30. (a) Output voltage obtained by low duty cycle PWM signal, (b) Output voltage obtained by high duty cycle PWM signal.

Figure 31. Output PWM obtained by MCU: (a) Low duty cycle PWM signal, (b) High duty cycle PWM signal.
 AUTOMATIKA 713

these models provides a basic understanding of the ele- Table 9. Costs of EPS units.
ments that go into cost estimation. While to accurately EPS units Cost
reflect mission costs, Cost Estimating Relationships Solar panel 980 $
(CERs) lack sufficient historical data on picosatellites PSU 190 $
PRU 270 $
and nanosatellites (50 kg). Because precise cost mod- MCU 160 $
els require taking into account complex parameters and
integrating different aspects (Student, faculty, travel,
and facilities costs) to build a database. Estimating the Based on the available online markets [74–78], the total
cost of each system by an approximative and reusable cost of each EPS unit is presented in Table 9.
cost analysis is beneficial to future system design teams Nowadays, it is possible to find good commercial
who can use the reusable design without wasting time, EPS products provided by space companies. However,
money, and energy determining the costs involved. In designing one is an interesting cost-effective trade-off
this paper, an assessment of the total cost of the EPS and a good teaching process for CubeSat engineers at
is required at the early stages of design because man- the same time. In this study, the second option is pre-
aging the cost reduction of this system at the design ferred; the following charts (Figure 32) are for the distri-
stage is more effective than at the manufacturing and bution cost of solar panel, PSU including the batteries,
development stage. 70–80% of the cost of the product is PRU, and MCU respectively.
determined during the design phase according to sev- From the distribution cost of the EPS presented in
eral authors [72,73]. In this project, the CT factor is Figure 32, it is noticed that solar cells are the most
calculated simply by: expensive component [25]. These prices have been
 evaluated to the available markets, which depend on
CT = CTi (7) many factors such as the quantities purchased and their
availability. In this paper, EPS costs related to assembly,
Where CTi representing the cost of each component and integration, testing, and verification are not taken into
therefore CT representing the total cost of the concept. account.

Figure 32. Distribution cost: (a) Solar panel, (b) PSU, (c) PRU and (d) MCU.
714 K. D. E. KERROUCHE ET AL.

7. Conclusion the simulation results. Therefore, the effectiveness of

the proposed EPS design was proven to be capable of
The main objective of this paper is to provide suffi-
supplying the CubeSat subsystems.
cient basic knowledge about certain methods and tech-
The designed EPS prototype proposed in this work
niques to enable students and new space engineers to
is used as an engineering model; for the space-qualified
design EPS for nanosatellites on their own without the
model, some ideas must be taken into consideration in
extra costs related to the standard commercial pur-
the upcoming work of this designed EPS as follows:
chase. Firstly, this paper defined the objectives, the mis-
sion requirements, and how to derive them into power
− Make sure to fulfil the recommended environ-
system specifications to propose the most suitable and
mental qualification (using an ElectroMagnetic
reliable electrical architecture to achieve the successful
Compatibility (EMC) chamber, mechanical vibra-
mission of the CubeSat. The proposed design method
tion, and a thermal vacuum chamber) to decide
will facilitate moving from preliminary to detailed
whether the designed EPS modules are qualified
design and will allow flexible iterative experimental val-
for space or not, so, more luck in the launch oppor-
idation to have the appropriate EPS design, for the
tunity [83],
engineering model and the space-qualified model as
− Come up with more hardware solutions and test-
well.
ing to improve protection against space radiations
The dedicated space-grade components are expen-
that are very harmful to the electrical circuits and
sive and not easily available. Consequently, all the elec-
components on the CubeSat, such as “single event
tronic components used in this project should be low-
latch-up and total ionization dose” in the semicon-
cost Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS). However, the
ductor devices [84] that can burn the component if
components based on a semiconductor must have space
the power is not turned off quickly enough [85,86],
qualifications or be shielded from the radiation and
− Consider conducting real-time simulations/
be robust during the whole mission. In this design
measurements of subsystems using Hardware In
approach of the proposed EPS, the selection of com-
Loop (HIL) for different scenarios when the Cube-
ponents was based on COTS experienced and used
Sat is simulated in its orbit [87],
in successfully launched nanosatellites, especially dur-
− Conduct comparative analysis between analogue
ing maximum solar activity periods which produce
and digital MPPT by using different microcon-
high radiation [79,80]. The typical Total Ionization
troller technologies in terms of the overall effi-
Dose (TID) for nanosatellites, in LEO missions below
ciency and reliability of the EPS.
the internal radiation belt, is only around 5-10krad,
which most newer COTS parts can inherently toler-
For future works, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm
ate. Therefore, the tolerated value of a TID over a
can be used to optimize the EPS design parameters with
specific duration (one year) will be significantly lower
more accuracy and less time and cost. If students at
than 5krad, which is considered safe for COTS com-
any university need a more detailed design procedure
ponents [81,82]. Moreover, upon choosing the required
with step-by-step instructions, they may contact the
design elements, an efficiency assessment based on sim-
authors.
ulations and experimentation is mandatory established
to guarantee their suitability for the initial assumption.
In this design, both analog Integrated Circuit (IC) and Disclosure statement
digital MicroController Unit (MCU) are considered as
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
cold/hot redundancy approaches to improve the design
reliability. As a hot redundancy strategy, battery charge
regulation is implemented in an MCU and operated Funding
by an analog IC; the same IC is used for the maxi- This work is funded by the National Key Research and Devel-
mum power point tracking which is also combined in opment Program of China (No. 2018YFB1500800).
the same algorithm implemented in the MCU as cold
redundancy. ORCID
According to the experimental verification, the
Kamel Djamel Eddine Kerrouche http://orcid.org/0000-
tested solar cells are in good health and can produce the 0002-7081-3571
required energy. Thus, in terms of energy produced, the Abderrahmane Seddjar http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9711-
designed solar panel can accomplish the CubeSat mis- 9814
sion. Likewise, the power storage unit performed very Nassima Khorchef http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7954-454X
well, as evidenced by the battery charge and discharge Sidi Ahmed Bendoukha http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4843-
4409
characteristics achieved. The power converters used in
Lina Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4919-0645
the power regulation unit with the proposed control
Abdelkader Aoudeche http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8866-
algorithm are also functioning very well and matching 018X
 AUTOMATIKA 715

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Appendix
Table A1 shows the electrical characteristics of solar cells:

Table A1. Electrical characteristics of solar cells [37]. Figure A1. PIC16F877A pin connections.

Open circuit voltage (mV) 2690

Short circuit current (mA) 519.6
Maximum power voltage (mV) 2409
Table A3 shows the acronyms list.
Maximum power current (mA) 502.9
Efficiency (%) 29.6
Table A3. Acronyms list.

Table A2 shows the electrical characteristics of battery Acronyms Signification

cells: ADC Analogue to Digital Converter
BCR Battery Charge Regulator
CERs Cost Estimating Relationships
Table A2. Electrical characteristics of battery cells [46]. CNES Centre national d’études spatiales
DCM Discontinuous Conduction Mode
Nominal capacity and 1.1Ah, 3.3V D Duty cycle
voltage DC-DC Direct Current to Direct Current
Recommended 1.5A to 3.6V CCCV, 45 min DET Direct Energy Transfer
standard charge CNC Computerised Numerical Control
method COTS Commercial-Off-The-Shelf
Recommended fast 4A to 3.6V CCCV, 15 min CT Cost Total
charge current ESA European Space Agency
Maximum continuous 30 EL Electroluminescence
discharge (A) ECSS European Cooperation for Space Standardization
Operating temperature −30°C to +60°C EMC ElectroMagnetic Compatibility
range (°C) EPS Electrical Power System
Core cell weight (g) 39 HIL Hardware In the Loop
GEO Geostationary Earth Orbit
IC Integrated Circuit
Figure A1 shows the 44-Pin QFN package of the LEO Low Earth Orbit
MCU [64]. MCU MicroController Unit
MOSFET Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor
MPPT Maximum Power Point Tracking
PCB Printed Circuit Board
P&O Perturb and Observe
PPOD Poly PicoSatellite Orbital Deployer
PPT Peak Power Transfer
PRU Power Regulation Unit
PSU Power Storage Unit
PV PhotoVoltaic
PWM Pulse Width Modulation