To design and breadboard digitally controlled DC/DC converters with health diagnosis

 

Nowadays power control units design is unique and it depends on the specific application. Should the needs change, a new development is needed, thus increasing the development time and the non-recurrent-costs. Given the critically of the power conditioning module, redundancy and triple majority voting are needed, adding complexity to the design.

In order to increase the flexibility of power management systems, the use of a modular set of independently controlled DC-DC converters can be explored. The goal is to make such DC-DC converters suitable for different purposes, like Solar Array regulation and battery management. The selection of the different functions shall be performed via digital control, which is internal to each module. In this way, the adaptation to new requirements could only consists of modifying the number and/or connection of the modules, avoiding the burden of new development.

Apart from the independent control system, each DC-DC converter module shall include health and on-line degradation monitoring. These features will allow the degraded module to be graciously disconnected from the system before a failure occurs. This concept is being successfully explored in some terrestrial applications and could be used in space applications to increase the reliability of the power system.

This activity encompasses the following tasks:

- Requirements definition.

- Review of existing decentralized control methods for DC distribution systems. Assessment of their capabilities to comply with ECSS requirements regarding power bus quality.

- Review of health monitoring methods applicable to DC/DC converters.

- Selection and design of DC/DC converter topology suitable for Solar Array Regulation, battery management, series and parallel connection

- Selection and design of the digital platform capable of performing the digital control of the converters and the health monitoring functions.

- Manufacturing and testing the prototypes.

- Verification of requirements.

;Software shall be delivered under an ESA Software Community Licence, so that any individuals or entities within ESA Member States can access to it and can provide update to the community of users.