Power Budgeting of LEO Satellites: An Electrical Power System Design for 5G Missions

Abstract

Although Geostationary-Equatorial-Orbit (GEO) satellites have achieved significant success in conducting space missions, they cannot meet the 5G latency requirements due to the far distance from the earth surface. Therefore, Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites arise as a potential solution for the latency problem. Nevertheless, integrating the 5G terrestrial networks with LEO satellites puts an increased burden on the satellites' limited budget, which stems from their miniature sizes, restricted weights, and the small available surface for solar harvesting in the presence of additional required equipment. This paper aims to design the Electrical Power System (EPS) for 5G LEO satellites and investigate altitudes that meet the latency and capacity requirements of 5G applications. In this regard, accurate solar irradiance determination for the nadir-orientation scenario, Multi-Junction (MJ) solar cells modeling, backup batteries type and number, and designing highly-efficient converters are addressed. Accordingly, the power budgeting of the 5G LEO satellite can be achieved based on defining the maximum generated power and determining the satellite's subsystem power requirements for 5G missions. In the sequel, the measured and simulated values of the electrical V-I characteristics of an MJ solar panel are compared to validate the model by using a Clyde Space solar panel that reaches a maximum power generation of approximately 1W at (I M P P = 0.426A, V M P P = 2.35V ). Moreover, a synchronous boost converter circuit is designed based on commercial offthe-shelf elements.INDEX TERMS 5G, CubeSat, Electrical Power System (EPS), Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) Satellites, Multi-Junction (MJ) Solar Cells.

Design of a multibeam metasurface antenna for LEO satellite communications payload

“…With the satellite orbit height h = 500 km, the calculated length and width of the spot on Earth are ≈143 × 39 km. In the article [32] the budgeting of the power of LEO satellites was investigated and described. The authors are looking at the low Earth orbit power budget to see if the MSA produced could be suitable for the high power in the LEO application constellation.…”

“…It is known that if the aperture in two dimensions is different, the beam will broaden in smaller dimensions. Slotted waveguide antennas with different aperture sizes in two directions have already been used in practice for beam shape design in a number of practical applications [32]. We propose a novel method for forming flattened beams based on the phase variation on the surface of the MSA aperture.…”

Autonomous Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface based on Highly-Efficient Solar Cells

“…This is the effective area of photovoltaic cells that absorb solar radiation and converts it to DC power. The energy harvested by photovoltaic cells is then passed on to batteries with help from the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) DC-DC converter as described in [16]. The efficiency of this block is another important factor for optimizing the overall power consumption of the RIS.…”

Generating Low-Earth Orbit Satellite Attitude Maneuver Profiles Using Deep Neural Networks

“…Finally, after a LEO satellite completes its observations, a sun-pointing attitude maneuver is required for maximizing the power generation [ 22 ].…”