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LOW-COST EPS FOR NANOSATELLITES CONSTELLATION OF BELT AND ROAD

COUNTRIES

Article in Advances in the Astronautical Sciences · October 2018

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 IAA-AAS-DyCoSS4-8-14
AAS 18-681

LOW-COST EPS FOR NANOSATELLITES CONSTELLATION OF

BELT AND ROAD COUNTRIES
KERROUCHE K. Dj. E,* WANG L.† and AOUDECHE A.‡
In order to reinforce relationship between belt and road countries, spreading
technology and space education for students, making space cooperation to build
Nanosatellites constellation are proposed by the project presented in this paper.
The preliminary estimated number of Nanosatellites necessary to cover these ar-
eas within short period of time is eight Nanosatellites, which will communicate
with principle Ground Station (GS), other support GSs and redundant GSs. The
proposed payload of the Nanosatellite is dedicated to track trajectories of trans-
portations system, which may then be used to control the traffic jam along Belt
and Road countries from ground-based stations by receiving the Automatic
Identification System (AIS). The main focus of the presented research within
this paper investigates the field relating to the Electrical Power Systems (EPS)
for these Nanosatellites. Moreover, the design of the EPS is based on low cost
Components Off-The-Shelf (COTS) component with the consideration of space
environment and the acquired experience by the launched CubeSats. A simula-
tion model of the Satellite EPS with the solar panel as main source and the bat-
tery storage as the secondary source was developed in MATLAB-SIMULINK.
The close objective of this work is to test this new low-cost EPS hardware with
the calculated parameters obtained from simulations. By simulation results and
experimental tests, the effectiveness of the proposed control for the EPS is prov-
en with environment changes in SSO of the nanosatellite constellation.

INTRODUCTION
The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk, Road or The Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) is an established policy proposed by the Chinese government that focuses on
connectivity and cooperation between Eurasian countries and African countries, primarily the
People's Republic of China (PRC), the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the
ocean-going Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The initiative was known as the One Belt and One Road
Initiative (OBOR) until 2016 1. The Chinese government defines the initiative "a bid to enhance
regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future" 2, whereas critics call it a push by China to
take a larger role in global affairs with a China-centered trading network 3, 4.

* School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100091, China. E-mail:
kerrouche20@yahoo.fr.
† School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100091, China.
‡ School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100091, China.

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 In order to contribute in this ambitious project, the constellation of eight Nanosatellites are
proposed, which will be first confirming the feasibility of detection from orbit, opening up the
prospect of a special belt and road countries for shipping, ground transportation system and prob-
ably aircraft monitoring system. Therefore, the primary mission is to test an improved receiver for
detecting Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals emitted by transportation systems along
belt and road countries. Down on the ground, these signals are short-range and leaving large
spans of the belt and road countries uncovered. Nevertheless, signals also travel up to orbital alti-
tude, opening up the prospect of belt and road countries monitoring. These signals are regularly
broadcasted from ships, aircraft and ground transportation system, giving trajectory and flight
information such as speed, position and altitude 5. All transportation system entering belt and road
countries are envisaged to deliver such automatic surveillance in the coming years.
The Nano satellite called BeihangSat is CubeSat based on standardized 10 cm cubic units, be-
ing Nano and low-cost, they make ideal platforms for rapidly flight testing experimental technol-
ogies, which will be built by students at Beihang University. Generally, dedicated space grade
components are expensive, bulky and not easily available. Consequently, all the electronic com-
ponents used in this project should be commercial off-the-shelf (COTS). The selection criteria
also take into consideration the space environment tests results and heritage of earlier space mis-
sions, while maintaining the low cost of the sub-systems 6. Therefore, the Nano satellite’s electri-
cal circuit is considered to be assembled by Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components
commercially available in China (Taobao, T-mall, JD and Alibaba) and using available manufac-
turing services (such as Printed Circuit Board manufacturing and CNC machines). Low cost also
makes these platforms ideal for educating spacecraft engineers. The complete design was done
from ground up by students.
This paper focuses on the Electrical Power System (EPS) based on low cost COTS for the
Nano satellite, at present under testing and development in the University of Beihang, particularly
fault tolerance, first describing structures included in its design and then preliminary tests con-
ducted on them, expanding upon earlier works.

MISSION ANALYSIS
The aim of this mission is to help and improve the reliability of the optimized management for
the shipping and the ground transportation system among belt and road countries. Therefore, the
proposed Automatic Identification System (AIS) can be a suitable solution because of its capabil-
ity of sending and receiving ship information such as identity, position, course, speed, ship par-
ticulars and cargo information to and from other ships and shore stations. (can be placed in the
introduction). Shipboard AIS provides automatic and accurate information regarding risk of colli-
sion by calculating Closest Point of Approach (CPA) and Time to Closest Point of Approach
(TCPA) 7. Moreover, the existence of some remote area with weak and susceptible communica-
tion system on the belt and road countries 8, gives the reason to use AIS on ground transportation
system. Generally, the AIS signals can be transmitted from ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore to al-
low the monitoring of a local area but deploying space-based AIS terminals allows a broad cover-
age 9, data relay to ground stations for monitoring of large sea areas and to ensure the system reli-
ability. However, due to the large footprint of satellites, overlapping and signal collisions become
a problem, especially for frequented traffic routes.
In this study, the Nanosatellite space-based AIS will be a 1U CubeSat standard utilizing
VHF/UHF amateur frequency bands. The nanosatellite is controlled by an onboard Computer
which interfaces with an on-board transceiver. The OBC interprets and turns on uplinked tel-
ecommands, transportation system signals, sends beacon, requested telemetry and data. The

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nanosatellite is operated by the mission primary at BUAA Ground Station. The Belt and Road
Countries Support Ground Station and radio amateur community can receive transmitted data
from the space segment. Data from support Ground Station and Radio amateurs can be supplied
to the BUAA Ground Station data center via internet. Payload providers in China will supply pay-
load operation requests to Belt and Road countries and will have access to their payload data
stored in the BUAA data center in order to manage or to do the required mission. This process is
illustrated in 䭉䈟!ᵚᵚ᢮ࡠᕅ⭘ⓀDŽ1.
䭉䈟 ᵚ᢮ࡠᕅ⭘ⓀDŽ

䭉䈟 ᵚ᢮ࡠᕅ⭘ⓀDŽ

Figure 1. Ground/Space Segment Interactions around Belt and Road countries

The mission orbit desired is a Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) with an altitude of 500 km. The
orbit design parameters are shown in Table 1, which are obtained from the simulation by STK
software.

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 Table 1. Mission Parameters

Mission Parameters
First and Second Payload -
Mission
Duration of Mission One-year
LEO/SSO 10:30 (Local Time)
Altitude (Km) 500
Semi-major axis (Km) 6871
Eccentricity (e) 0
Inclination i (°) 98,1651361°
Orbit RAAN 247,25°
Argument of Perigee 0°
True Anomaly 290,25°
Orbit Propagator HPOP
Revolution Period T (mn) 94,46907234
Eclipse Period (mn) 35,69205217
Number of Orbits per day 15,20148303
Phase
Repetitively Period 24,01081521
Parameters of the Ground Station Ground Station Visibility Period (mn) 7,04259422
Visibility (10°elevation) Passages Number Average 12 per day

Since many Nanosatellites are generally launched as a secondary payload, its specific orbital
trajectory is chosen by the primary mission requirements. Based on previous Nanosatellite launch
trends, a Sun- Synchronous Orbit (SSO) has been chosen with an inclination of 98,16°, an alti-
tude of 500 km over the equator, and a period of 94,46 mn. The minimum elevation considered
for VHF/UHF communications is 10 deg. This reference orbit is a design guide constructed from
historical averages, and additional worst-case figures must be considered whenever possible
throughout the mission design process. In order to have different Earth coverage by each
Nanosatellite and to avoid simultaneous visibility of two nanosatellites or more from the primary
Ground Station, the reference mission orbit of each Nanosatellite, and particularly the argument
of latitude will be carefully defined. The description of the position of the nanosatellites constel-
lation is illustrated by the following Figure 2.

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 Figure 2. Nanosatellite Constellation Phasing

As shown in Figure 3, the minimum antenna elevation angle is 10°. According to STK soft-
ware simulation results, the Nano satellites, will pass over China 86 times a day, with the longest
passing time in about 20.58 min. Figure 4, shows the passes for communication between the
Nano satellites and BUAA Earth Station, with the longest time visibility of 11.56 min.

Figure 3. Nano Satellites Coverage over the Republic of China during one day at 500 Km

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 Figure 4. Nano Satellite Coverage BUAA Ground Station during one day

ARCHITECTURE OF ON-BOARD SYSTEMS

In this section, the requirements and design of Electrical Power System (EPS) is presented
briefly. The EPS was designed to meet the mission requirements, lasts during the mission life
time and to supply the subsystems that have been defined as:
¾ On Board Data Handling (OBDH),
¾ AIS (First payload), telecommunication or Telemetry, Tracking & Control (TT&C),
¾ Experimental Camera (Second Payload),
¾ Attitude Determination & Control System (ADCS).
Therefore, as shown in Figure 5, the main requirements of EPS design are to supply these sub-
systems with uninterrupted and stabilized power at +5V, +3.3V and +7.2 V voltage levels, to pro-
vide the system’s health measurements, to ensure the system’s protections and to deactivate EPS
during launching at LEOP or at different scenarios.

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 3.3V

Payload OBC

EPS

6.5~12.5V 5V

Communication lines

Telecommunication Power lines ADCS

(Tx/Rx)

Figure 5. CubeSat’s Subsystems Electrical Architecture

EPS power capability has to cover the budget mainly by the generated power from PV panels
or by the battery in nominal cases, like eclipse or over-loading. EPS contains current and voltage
sensors to monitor the system operation. All measurements will be sent to On-Board Computer
subsystem (OBC) in analog form for decoding.
The power consumptions (preliminary energy balance) of each subsystem of the studied Cu-
beSat were given in Table 2.
Table 2. Subsystems’ Power Consumptions

Subsystem Components Mean consumption (W) Maximal consumption

(W)
ADCS Fly Wheel road 0.18/0.54 1.8/5.4
Magnetorquer 0 0.209
Sensors 0 0.65
OBC 0.22
Tm/Tc Transceiver (Tx), (UHF) 0 2
Receiver or AIS (Rx), (VHF) 0.35 1.1
Pay Load Camera 0.1 0.575
Marge (20%) 2
Total 12.185

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 The maximum current from each subsystem has to be known before designing the EPS. The
exact consumptions of subsystems were not available during the work on this paper, so that the
following estimations were made based on datasheet. According to SMAD 13, the marge of 20%
is used for the preliminary design of the EPS.
PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRICAL POWER SYSTEM
Figure6 shows the model of the Cube-satellite, five sides (-X, +X, -Y, +Y and +Z) were cov-
ered with solar cells from Azur Space 3G 10 and coatings (aluminum or black paint). Solar cells
are not attached to one side (side -Z). On this side the communication antenna and camera can be
mounted.

Solar cell
-Z

+X +Y -X -Y

+Z

Figure 6. CubeSat Open Panels Structure

In the proposed CubeSat platform, the solar cells are placed on five of six sides, this will in-
volve three boost converters for each two solar panels, as shown in Figure 7. These are connected
with panels on opposite faces of the CubeSat connected to the same power converter (–X array
and +X array are connected to MPPT1, -Y and +Y to MPPT2 and –Z and +Z to MPPT3). The
power converters can be connected in parallel and each converter has an inbuilt Maximum Power
Point Tracker (MPPT). In this proposed configuration only one panel per pair can be directly il-
luminated by sun at any given time, with the second panel providing a limited amount of energy
due to albedo illumination from the earth. This is very beneficial since it allows MPPT of sepa-
rate solar panels, which will have different MPPs due to differences in irradiance and temperature.
Instead of using one boost converter per side of the satellite, a good trade-off can be to use one
boost converter for two solar panels on opposite sides of the CubeSat. This MPPT will track the
dominant power PV panel of the connected pair (the directly illuminated PV panel). Meanwhile,
the sun will illuminate only one of these sides at any given time. A similar topology is used in
commercial CubeSat power solutions from Clyde Space, as presented in 11.

818
(a)

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 Pow er Regulation 6.6~8.2 V 3.3 V
PV source Subsystem s
and Control Unit DC

DC
OBC

Charge Dicharge 5V
regulator regulator DC

DC
ADCS

Battery

3.3 V
DC

DC
Payload

7.2 V
DC

DC
Telecom m unication

Distribution
Control unit

(b)

Figure 7. Proposed EPS Configuration for CubeSat with Open Solar Panels Structure: (a) Power
Regulation and Control Unit, (b) Power Distribution Unit

Using the above topology also functions as a built-in redundancy: the loss of a single boost
converter or damage to a solar panel will not deactivate the whole EPS. There is no requirement
to regulate the main bus, as the subsystems themselves will separately regulate their specific sup-
ply 12. In this project, the choice was focused on A123 Systems’ lithium ion rechargeable
APR18650M1A cell 16, which is capable to provide very high power, long cycle and storage life,
has superior abuse tolerance due to the use of patented Nano phosphate technology and has al-
ready been tested in space application 17.

LOW COST SPACE QUILIFICATED COMPONENTS

One of the key tasks that faces satellite subsystem designers is reducing the cost while main-
taining high reliability. The core origins of high satellite subsystem cost are space hardened com-
ponents. Therefore, recently a lot of satellite designers start shifting to commercial components to
reduce the cost significantly. For the success of the space mission, the design based on these
components should consider radiation tolerance and other space environmental effects. ECSS-Q-
ST-60-15C 14 is a recommended standard for the design features that impact system functionality
and reliability.
The first step in component selection is to choose the components that meets the main tech-
nical requirements of the designed system. Then, these components must be filtered accodring to
space environmal tests results. However, some components can reasonably be assumed to be ra-
diation tolerant to at least 30 krad when operated in proper and derated biasing conditions as 15:

820
 ¾ All components not based on semicondoctor (resistors, capacitors, inductors, connect-
ors, etc),
¾ Signle-junction diodes (standar, Schottky, Zener),
¾ Bipolar junction transistors (BJTs).
The aim of the work reported in this paper is to review commercial components of potential
interest to CubeSat missions such as AAUSAT, OUFTIL, Trailblazer, Rampart, and others. The
component types studied in this determination are listed in Table 3. They include devices with
desirable functionality and performance with previously known radiation performance, which
have been tested in laboratories and experienced by space projects 15. As with all commercial
components, the design and/or fabrication technology may be changed at any time and can have a
significant impact on the device performance in a radiation environment. Moreover, this paper
presents an approach for Components Off-The-Shelf (COTS) selection in a low cost Electrical
Power System (EPS) for nanosatellite as shown in the table below.
Table 3. Proposed tested Commercial Components

Description Component reference Package Manufacture High Dose Highest fully

Rate functional Dose
(rad(Si/s) @ High Dose
Rate(Krad(Si))
IC, M74HC157RM13TR 16-SOIC ST-Micro 57 70
MULTIPLEXER
(0.154",
QUAD -SOIC
3.90 mm
Width)

MOSFET N-CH 2N7002 SOT-23 Fairchild 57 <10 (See

60V 115MA graph below)
SOT23

TXB0108 TXB0108 20- Texas 57 100

TSSOP
LEVEL Instruments
TRANSLATOR
FOR GPIO
Microchip PIC16F88 28 Pin Microchip 47.6 20
Enhanced Flash (Embedded in ASIM QFN
Microcontroller printed Ckt Board)

Current sensor INA138, INA168 SOT-23 Texas NA NA

Instruments
Programmable ADP3810/ADP3811 SO-8 ANALOG NA NA
Charge Current DEVICES
High Precision Bat-

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tery Voltage Limit
Protects Sensitive UCC3911_1843865 SOIC– Texas NA NA
Lithium-Ion and 16
Instruments
Lithium-Polymer
Cells from Over-
charging
and Overdischarg-
ing

SIMULATION AND PRACTICAL RESULTS

In this section, the proposed electrical power architecture is simulated and then the is com-
pared with practical experience. In this simulation, only the direct irradiance from the sun is con-
sidered and also the temperature on orbit as shown in Figure 8 (a). In Figure 8 (b), only one part
of this period is simulated in order to compare it with the experimental results shown in Figure 11.

Voltage and Power (V and W)

Irradiance (W/m2)

Temperature (C°)

Current (A)
(a) Time (s) (b) Time (s)

Figure 8. (a) Solar Irradiance and Temperature, (b) Output Voltage and Input Voltage

Based on low cost COTS components, the EPS is designed with PC 104 to be connected to the
other subsystem by Plug and Play method as shown in Figure 9.

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 (a) (b)

Figure 9. PCB Design: (a) Power Regulation and Control Unit, (b) Power Storage Unit

Figure 10. Experimental PCB Design of Power Regulation and Control Unit with Power Storage Unit

(a) (b)

Figure 11. Experimental Results: (a) Input Voltage, (b) Output Voltage

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 The results obtained in Figure 11 are similar to those obtained in simulation, so, the parame-
ters used in the design meet the requirement.

CONCLUSION
In the project presented in by this paper, the coastal AIS systems which is short range commu-
nication systems is replaced by AIS on board of Nano satellite. This improvement is used for test-
ing under the space environment and to make an evaluation for further development of an AIS
receiver for the final satellite or to be used to collect data of the transportation system for better
management in belt and road countries. If ships or ground transportations are in risk the AIS sys-
tem in Nano satellite can be also used to identify their last position for the rescue capability and
save lives. The main focus of this paper is the sizing and components’ selection based on Com-
ponents Off-The-Shelf (COTS) of the proposed EPS will be completed and presented with con-
sidering the volume constraints and the power budget limitations. The EPS is designed Based on
the experienced components used in launched CubeSats to have radiation tolerance and be robust
during all the whole mission. According to the experimental results of the designed EPS and sim-
ulation results, the effectiveness of the proposed design is proven to be capable to supply the
Nano satellite subsystems.

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