An FPGA-based Design Approach for Microsatellites Telemetry Subsystem

Abstract

The Tele-command and Telemetry (TT&C) subsystems are one of the vital components in satellites. Commanding, managing and data sampling from different sections of the satellite are performed through the TT&C subsystem. The telemetry and Tele-command parts of this subsystem could be implemented cooperatively with or separately from each other. Based on the satellite requirements, its mission and orbital lifetime and cost various approaches may be used in order to implement this subsystem. Furthermore, nowadays, the development of satellite subsystems based on commercial devices because of their low cost and accessibility is more attractive. However, their endurance for harsh space environment remains as a severe challenge. The Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), one of the best-developed commercial devices, are most successfully option in this application field. Nevertheless, the system designing methodology and the reliability of the implemented system on FPGAs remain as two major concerns. In this paper designing method and implementation result of Telemetry subsystem on field programmable gate array (FPGA) is presented. The implemented subsystem successfully passed environmental test according to ECSS standard. Furthermore, flight data confirm the feasibility of the presented FPGA based design methodology.