A Comprehensive Review on CubeSat Electrical Power System Architectures | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

A Comprehensive Review on CubeSat Electrical Power System Architectures


Abstract:

CubeSats have been popular for space research due to lower cost, faster development, and easier deployment. The electrical power system (EPS) is one of the significant su...Show More

Abstract:

CubeSats have been popular for space research due to lower cost, faster development, and easier deployment. The electrical power system (EPS) is one of the significant subsystems for the CubeSat since it handles power generation, energy storage, and power distribution to all other subsystems. Therefore, the design of EPS becomes crucial for successful CubeSat mission, wherein the first step is the selection of EPS architecture. The main objective of this article is to present an extensive review of all the conventional and emerging EPS architectures of CubeSats. A total of 17 categories of CubeSat EPS architectures have been identified, classified, and the operational aspects of these architectures are presented in addition to a qualitative comparison. This article is expected to provide a useful reference guide for all the researchers and developers working in the area of CubeSats EPS. Also, some of the potential research topics are provided to further exploration and innovation for the CubeSat EPS.
Published in: IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics ( Volume: 37, Issue: 3, March 2022)
Page(s): 3161 - 3177
Date of Publication: 03 September 2021

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I. Introduction

Development of advanced electronics has enabled building of CubeSats with powerful capabilities that were previously dominated by larger satellites. CubeSat belongs to the category of nanosatellite, which is built in multiples of 1U (10  10  cm) units. The CubeSat standards were originally proposed to enable students to learn, design, and test them in space [1], [2]. The concept of CubeSats gave affordable access to low-budget research programs for an ever increasing space missions to perform scientific experiments and validate new space technologies [3]. The very first set of six CubeSats were launched on June 30, 2003 on Eurockot [4] and since then, more than 1300 CubeSats have been launched [5]. Initially, academic institutes had majority of CubeSat launches, whereas most of the recent CubeSat launches are done for commercial purposes. The details of all the CubeSats that are launched as well as in planning stage can be seen in [5] and [6]. The list of some of the academic CubeSats referred in this article are shown in Table I.

References

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