Testing of Voltage Converters for the Electrical Power System of Estcube-2

Abstract

The goal for this work was to aid the process of designing EPS for ESTCube-2. The larger satellite needs more power and therefor the EPS of ESTCube-2 in not sufficient. During the process of this work following goals were achieved: *Easy to use testing platform to speed the testing of voltage converters was designed and manufactured; *Software to control and record data from this platform was designed; *The measurement range of the testing platform was validated and calibrated; *Four voltage converter testing modules were designed and manufactured; *Efficiency of these converters was measured; *Efficiency of these converters in load balancing mode was measured providing data of the efficiency of balancing circuit; The data collected from both tests provides valuable information for future tests. Based on current data, the best overall performance was seen with the LTC3603 voltage converter. The same chip also showed the smoothest performance with the load balancing circuit. The testing will continue after defending this thesis. Further testing must be concluded to determine parameters like converter output ripple, emission of EMI and behavior in temperature chamber.