Cryo Cooler Drive Electronics For Infra-Red Earth Observation payloads

In recent times, demand for Micro and Nano satellites have increased many folds, resulting in rapid development of miniaturized satellite systems. Imaging sensors in Infrared (IR) earth observation satellites require operation at lower temperatures (50K-100K). These sensors are integrated with motor-based cryo-coolers. This paper discusses the main challenges in design and development of high performance cryo-cooler drive electronics. This paper presents design aspects of a Class-D power amplifier based drive electronics, simulation results as well as the integrated test results with cryo-cooler (power $\approx 20 {\mathrm{W}})$. Developed electronics achieves $\sim 80-85\%$ power efficiency with short-term thermal stability better than $\pm 50~{\mathrm{mK}}$. Power dissipation in drive electronics is $\sim 4 {\mathrm{W}}$.