Development of an advanced nano-satellite (VELOX-IV) : onboard computer system

• Main Author: Li, Zhi
• Other Authors: Chen Shou Shun
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69308
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

VELOX-IV is an ongoing satellite project by NTU’s Satellite Research Centre (SaRC). This satellite will be a nano-satellite. This final year project focuses on the development of program updating feature for the onboard computer system. The current 8-bit microcontroller used in previous satellites projects are not able to meet the demand of complex research project in the future and the ready to fly kit used in the development of previous satellite onboard computer system presents various limitation in performance, peripherals, data buses and instruction size. Therefore, a 32-bit microcontroller from Texas Instruments is used in the development of this program-updating feature for the onboard computer system. In this project, a serial communication interface was used to transfer program code from personal computer to the microcontroller, and a serial peripheral interface was used to interface with external flash memory to store a backup of the bootloader firmware. The bootloader firmware and programs will be stored in on-chip flash memory, which will be executed when power up. In case of corruption or accidental erase of on-flash memory in space. The microcontroller will boot from the backup bootloader firmware stored in external flash memory.