Abstract Development of satellite technologies is a challenging task, which includes design, manufacturing, testing, and in-orbit operation stages. The reliability of each subsystem shall be at the highest level since space has severe environmental conditions and most satellites do not have an opportunity to perform repairment or replacement of their hardware components. In-orbit reprogramming of some devices, such as On-board Computer (OBC), Attitude Control Unit (ACU), and Power Control Unit (PCU) can provide great advantages to a mission by extending the lifetime and performance of a satellite's operation. At the same time, even a small mistake can result in a lot of monetary losses or even failure of a subsystem or the whole project. So, a reprogramming method to be used in space missions shall undergo excessive testing to provide high reliability for updating software in orbit. This paper is devoted to an investigation of available and applicable methods for remote reprogramming of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based subsystems. A commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) single board computer (SBC) was used as a standalone subsystem to perform reprogramming of a target device. The SBC was tested extensively and reinforced for ensuring its space-compatibility. Several open-source software-based solutions were considered. Some of them are applicable to a wide range of processor architectures, including ARM. Considered methods could reconfigure an FPGA successfully with some major limitations, which were also described in the paper. Based on the investigation, Xilinx Software Command-line Tool (XSCT) was selected as a reprogramming method for ACU of the latest satellite of iQPS, QPS-SAR-2 (“IZANAMI”).
In-Orbit FPGA reprogramming device for small satellites
Advances in Space Research ; 71 , 11 ; 4549-4556
2023-01-11
8 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Small satellite , FPGA , Reprogramming , Space , In-orbit , COTS , single board computer
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