Abstract:
Out of Violet’s electrical subsystems, the Power subsystem is the most critical because it is housed on a single board that supplies power to all other subsystems and is designed in-house. The Power System functions include using solar panels to collect energy, storing energy in batteries with appropriate protection systems, sampling components’ and subsystems’ sensors to monitor their power consumption, distributing power from solar cells and batteries, acting as a controller for the Flight Computer, and communicating with the Flight Computer through data packets. Hence, the Power microcontroller (MCU) serves as power controller and power monitor. Revision 1 of the Power Board layout was completed, and the populated board was tested in a Flat-sat setup. MCU code was written to execute the major control, monitoring, and communication functions. Correct functionality of the software functions was verified on a STK500-based testbench, which closely resembles the interfaces of the power system in the satellite. In the near future, further testing of the software will be done on a Revision 2 Power Board with a programmed MCU in order to model flight-like conditions.
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