Command and data handling

Baseline Design Review

Sitharaj S
Suresh Muthaiah
Karthic Balasubramanian

Proposed project / Product concept

Proposed Project
The proposed project is CubeSat C&DH OBC System.
Concept
Concept of project is to design CubeSat C&DH that has capable to manage satellite operation in
orbit and receive Telecommand from ground station and process it, collect telemetry, payload data from
different subsystem and send it to ground station via communication module.
Objectives
To design a modular hardware and software for CubeSat C&DH OBC system that effectively manages
the CubeSat in orbit. This modular design has low mass and low power consumption and capable to operate
in space environment.

3/24/15

AAT

Market survey
OBC

3/24/15

Image

PRICE (INR)

MASS(Grams)

POWER(Watts)

ISIS OBC

352,422

94

400mW

Nano Mind A712D

389,303

50

Cube Computer

368,813

50-70

200mW

Andrew Model 150

flight computer

2,048,965

70

<1Watts/3Watts

Andrew Model 160

flight computer

3,893,033

70

<5Watts/9Watts

AAT

C&DH System Configuration

OBC

Payload

Payload
data
storage

Payload
Handling

Telecommand
Telemetry
Control
Payload Data

EPS

Telemetry

COM

Telecommand
Handling

System &
Subsystem
management

ADCS

OBC Hardware Configuration

CENTRALIZED

DISTRIBUTED

EPS

EPS

ADCS

ADCS
OBC
OBC
PAYLOAD
PAYLOAD

COM

COM

Customer requirements
C&DH
Requirements

Hardware
Requirements

Environmental

Integration

Mass, power

Software
Requirements

Resource
requirements

Redundancy,
reliability

Libraries,
RTOS

Mission
Software

Voice Of Customer
Need

CTQs

Drivers
Technical aspect

High Computing Power

Low power Consumption(<400mW).
Communication interface (I2C, SPI,UART)
CubeSat Standard design (1U, 2U, 3U)
Memory ( SRAM, Flash, EEPROM,
SD/MMC)

Low Cost

Cost aspect
Radiation Protection (SEU, SEL)
Operating Temperature (-45 to 85 C)
Redundancy (for import part of OBC)

OBC
Reliability aspect

Low Mass (<100g)

Size (PC/104 form factor):

Mass aspect

Customization aspect
3/24/15

AAT

Software based customizable

CubeSat standard design

Hardware Analysis

Sensors
Temperature

Power

Current

voltage

OBC

MCU

Memory
I/O System
I2C

Timer

FLASH

SRAM

SPI
GPIO

RTC

WDT

EEPROM

SD Card

Controller selection

FPGAs
It consists of logic blocks that arranged in matrix form.
So users can define their function(Like CPU, I2C, SPI) easily in FPGA
It process the user application parallel .
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
It is an integrated circuit (IC) customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use.
System upgrade is very difficult and cost is high.
Microcontroller
Microcontroller is general purpose programmable integrated chip that has rich set of functionality.
Microcontroller is consists of CPU, control unit, memory, variety of integrated peripherals such as Timer, ADC,
DAC, I2C, SPI, etc.
Microprocessor
Microprocessor is general purpose computing device that is consists of CPU, control unit. We need to connect
memory and other peripherals externally.
We need to connect peripherals externally so it creates complexity in design and increase mass, size, power of
the system.

Controller Selection
Key parameters

Processing performance
Power consumption
On-chip communication
Peripheral availability
Memory capacity & Interface
Existing Mission Experience
size, mass, cost
Processor Architecture
By Vendors

Mission experience

By ISA

Architecture

Copyright

CISC

PowerPC

AIM (Apple, IBM,

Motorola)

RISC

Manufacture

Existing OBC Product

Texas Instrumentation

Pumpkin

Microchip

Pumpkin

ARM

ARM

SPARC

Sun Microsystem

Freescale semiconductor

Data Pattern OBC for

NUISAT

Atmel AVR

ATMEL

ATMEL

Microchip PIC

Microchip
Technology

ISIS, Gomspace, Cube

Computer, Tyvak Intrepid
System Board

Hardware Specification

Feature

Specification

Processor

MSP430 at 20Mhz

Memory

4Gb MMC/SD for payload data & telemetry.

On board Communication

SPI, I2C, RS232, RS485.

Integrated Peripherals

Temperature, voltage, current monitoring, Real Time Clock,

Software

FreeRTOS, TI-RTOS, hardware drivers.

Form Factor

PC/104

Power

<250mW

Operating temperature

-40 to +75 degree Celsius

Size

96x90x10mm

Mass

55 to 80grams

Hardware Specification

Feature

Specification

Processor

ARM CORTEX-M3 at 80Mhz

Memory

4Mb Flash for code, 2Mb SRAM for data with SEU, SEL
protection, 4Gb MMC/SD for payload data & telemetry.

On board Communication

SPI, I2C, RS232, RS485.

Integrated Peripherals

Temperature, voltage, current monitoring, Real Time Clock,

Software

FreeRTOS, TI-RTOS, hardware drivers.

Form Factor

PC/104

Power

<400mW

Operating temperature

-40 to +75 degree Celsius

Size

96x90x10mm

Mass

55 to 80grams

Software analysis
Software specification is consists of bare-metal software and user application specific software(Mission
software).
Bare metal software is nothing but operating system and hardware low level drivers.
Here our system is real time system that means it should not be allow time latency like interrupt latency,
I/O response, Task context delay.
From an above requirement, The RTOS bare metal software is only way to run our system in real time
environment.
Drivers is nothing but small programs like embedded c or assembly language that manages hardware
peripherals ADC, DAC, I2C, SPI,PWM etc.
User application software is consists of mission tasks such as telemetry managers, Telecommand
interpreter, system manager task etc.

Software specification (cont..,)

Requirements
RTOS

Specification

Language

Event-driven,
Priority,
multitasking

Assembly,
C/C++

Drivers

I2C, SPI, PWM,

TIMER,
WATCHDOG,

Assembly, C/C++

User application

Mission specified
application

C/C++

User Application

Hardware Low Level Drivers

Operating system
Hardware

Phase 3 - Iteration and

Implementation

PHASE 2 - HW/SW Partition

Phase 1 - Product Specification

Phase 4 - Detailed HW/SW

design
H/W Design Path activities

Phase 7 - Maintenance & Upgrade

Phase 6 - Acceptance Testing

Phase 5 - HW/SW
Integration

Development Cycle

S/W Design Path activities

Product Release

Gant chart

1-Sep-14
Concept study phase
Baseline Design Review
Preliminary Design phase
Preliminary design review
Critical design phase
Critical design review
Final design approval
Requirements procurement
Prototype M anufacturing
Testing, Verification and Validation
Test readiness review
Product/ Project presentation
Product display

21-Sep-14

11-Oct-14

31-Oct-14

20-Nov-14

10-Dec-14

30-Dec-14

19-Jan-15

8-Feb-15

28-Feb-15

20-M ar-15

Cost estimation
Human resources & labor cost
Tools cost (SW/HW)
Designing Manufacturing cost
Estimated cost: 100,000 to 250,000

RISK ANALYSIS AND MITIGATION

Potential risk Elimination of potential risk
1
Technical capability of the product does not meet
the expectations and wishes to the customers, the
product does not have assumption that will succeed
in the market
2
Complicated design of product for manufacturing,
the expenses of the product development process
exceeded the limits and budget forecast
3
The durability of the product development process
is longer as it was planned and therefore the
product could not enter to the market in a right time
4
The problems in manufacturing are caused very
complicated and complexity of the product,
increase the cost of producing the product
5
Critical people left the project

Risks in
The risks of the project are clearly defined in advance, before beginning
Through market research

matrix
Medium
risk

Project managers must achieve balance among these resource constraints:

time, funds, and required quality

High risk

Anticipating changes in technology and estimating the product life cycle

Low risk

Set a limit on the amount of risk, that will be accepted

Low risk

Improved communications through project

Increased motivation through: financial rewards, gift vouchers, vouchers for
birthday, staff training, career advancement, services paid by company:
foreign visits, courses, training.

High risk

Critical resources needed for the project was not

available at the right times

Developing plans and practices, that notify the most serious risks
Planning and monitoring of risks by introducing standardized connection
between risk management processes, enabling quick respond to changes in
other people involved in the development and take into account changes the
objectives of the project

Medium
risk

The project missed critical milestones

Compliance methods at each stage in process of product development

Improve the process more accurate by redistributing of means
Development alternative methods - each partial goal can be achieved by
several methods

Medium
risk

Cost of the product exceeded the market

expectations, exceeded budget

Anticipating and responding to expected competitor reaction.

Periodic and detailed estimates throughout the project
Inclusion of a project manager who has experience with audits and
inspections that are done before assigning tasks

Low risk

Introduction of new tools, technology, or processes

during the project

Testing of new tools, technology or processes for a specified period

Analysis of internal and external environment (market, customers,
competitors, strengths and weaknesses of the company

Medium
risk

10

The subcontractors and supplies do not fulfill the

schedule

Effective communication, regular exchange of information between

subcontractors and supply

Low risk

11

The mistakes in design cause problems in

manufacturing. There are misunderstandings
between designers and manufacture. Redesign is
expensive and takes additional time

Optimizing the cost of risk management and reducing losses due to

incorrect decisions

High risk

Conclusion
Every CubeSat mission has their own mission objective and design so customer need a reconfigurable
hardware and software OBC module for their mission. Reconfiguration means to modify the existing OBC
subsystem available in the market. Direct hardware based reconfiguration is not feasible because it take more
time and perhaps creates unnecessary system behavior when modifying important components of OBC. So
software based hardware reconfiguration is a good way to complete mission objective because we are not
changing physical component we are only changing behavior of physical components of OBC to achieve
mission objective.

3/24/15

AAT

19

Thank You

Questions