Team members:
- Daniel Brink
- Michael Davies
- Dan Hoang
- Andrew Mountain
At the request of Colorado Space Grant, we are building a system that will act as the Power Distribution Control Unit for the Colorado Space Grant Consortium's satellite Citizen Explorer. The functionality of the PDCU has to meet specific given criteria, including:
- Use the protocol of RS-422/485
- The PIC will control the state of seventeen relays
- The PIC will store to memory the state of each relay
- The PIC will send the relay status and thermistor status to the flight controller at a set time or when otherwise requested by the flight computer
- The flight controller will send commands as to the state of each relay and the PIC will determine whether the relay is in the correct state; if not the PIC will alter the state of the relay
- The PIC will also receive information in the form of a digital signature, to ensure the flight controller is functioning properly; if functioning improperly, the PDCU will send a power pulse to restart the flight controller
- The components will be placed on a PCB board and will be restricted to the dimension of 5"x 5"x 2"
- Power system will be 80% efficient