Solar Array Simulator for Microsatellites Power System Testing

Power systems verification requires the stability of the environmental conditions during the entire testing period, because small variations in irradiance, temperature and solar angle incidence can compromise the test results making difficult the real device performance evaluation. For this reason a traditional photovoltaic module is not a practical power source for laboratory testing, but it is necessary to use instruments that can simulate the I-V characteristic of a solar array. Because of the high cost of these instruments, in the framework of university satellite programs, and the requirement of several devices to simulate each solar array, the design and prototyping of a low-cost system, with the purpose of testing microsatellites power systems, was undertaken at University of Bologna