Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) has developed a solar battery simulator that will allow testing spacecraft equipment on earth.
According to Sergey Velikher, a graduate student at the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the Faculty of Radio Engineering and Electronics (NSTU-NETI), it is inefficient and labor-intensive to use real solar panels in the power supply system being tested on earth to reproduce the conditions of a satellite in space orbit under operating conditions.
"Solar panel simulators have been developed to simulate the output power of a solar panel in space, a necessary part of the satellite's power supply system, which allows each subsystem of the satellite to be powered instead of the solar panel during ground tests," said Sergey Velikher.
Solar battery simulators are part of a project commissioned by the university's industrial partner, the creation of a spacecraft power supply system for debugging supply and navigation systems in initial ground tests.
The developed prototype during tests at the Institute of Power Electronics of NSTU-NETI showed effective operation in all the main modes of operation of the solar panel simulation: short circuit, idle and maximum power. In terms of its performance, the solar panel simulator is not inferior to its imported counterpart.
"In terms of energy, our development is not inferior to the main imported analog - we are talking about efficiency and mass-absorption parameters, where the mass is almost 30 kg and the specific power is 142W/ kg," said Sergey Velikher, adding that in the future it is planned to optimize some emergency modes and improve the operation of solar battery simulator modules.
As part of the Priority 2030 program, NSTU-NETI scientists are also developing a protection and control control unit, a device for maintaining the output voltage of a three-stage generator at a preset level, which is used as the main source of electricity to power the aircraft's on-board systems.