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Títol: Scheduler design for an orbital propagator and other software improvements

Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:

Director/a: PARK, HYUK

Departament: FIS

Títol: Scheduler design for an orbital propagator and other software improvements

Data inici oferta: 18-01-2019     Data finalització oferta: 09-07-2019


Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    GR ENG SIST AEROESP
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: EETAC
 
Nom del segon director/a (UPC): Jordi Castellvi
Departament 2n director/a:
 
Paraules clau:
Satellite, Orbit, Scheduling
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
Realise a space mission with a satellite is an expensive
practice that requires a lot of computational work to be done
before the launch. The technology on board, the needed fuel,
the expected trajectory, the materials and shape of the
satellite are some of the items that must be clear at the time
to realise a mission. For that reasons it’s important to design
a realistic software simulator to be able to test all this
parameters with a computer. With the use of a program, a
company for example, could have an orientated idea of what will
be the final product. As better the software is, more money the
company would save realising less extra tests. The aim of this
TFG is improve an existing mission simulator program in
different ways. To do that is important to search a lot of
information about the areas/parameters that affect at the time
to design a space mission for a satellite. Once the initial
background has been studied, one of the main branches of the
TFG is to improve the SCHEDULER (the element that optimizes the
missions taking into account all the parameters that affect to
it). To do that, different optimization algorithms will be
studied and the most appropriated ones will be applied. It’s
important that this scheduler maybe could be used for other
practices absolutely different to the aim of this project. For
example, it could be used for improve the flight scheduling of
an airline or for been the “decision maker” in a program that
realise the sectorization of a specific portion of the
airspace. It’s important to be aware that same work can be
useful for different areas, so the possible implementation of
the developed algorithms in other study fields will be treated.
Furthermore, there are different sections of the existing
program where the software could be improved: the thermal
budget, power balance, data treatment… at the time to do the
initial information search and the first tests with the
software the student will appreciate and decide which fields
will be improved or modified. With those code implementations,
the software will be more sophisticated what means a better
approximation to the reality behaviour that could have if the
launch is finally realised.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
The main objective of this work is contributing into the development of one satellite missions’ simulator. Specifically, the main part to work in is the scheduler, the task manager that decides how the simulator must behave during the full mission. Other software improvements will be done too.

The scheduler is the internal logic that the on-board computer/s of a satellite must follow in order to satisfy the mission objectives. It takes into account the requirements and constrains of the power, thermal and data budgets. Depending on the state of the budgets it evaluates if the different satellite subsystems must be: active, inactive or must change the way that they are operating. So it can take action using commands if is needed because it works in a fully-independent-way.

This work will improve the current scheduler of a satellite simulator, making him more efficient, resistant and customizable. Different working modes will be implemented in the simulator in order to avoid the collapse of the budgets. The mode changes logic and the capabilities of each one of the working modes will be the key of improving the scheduler.

Previous to the code implementation, a theoretical research will be done in order to understand the different components that play a roll into the different budgets.

The other software improvements are functionalities added to the simulator to make him more realistic and useful for a huger range of space mission. A precision “submode” is implemented for example. Also some satellite parameters are studied in order to see its affectation to the three budgets. Examples could be the chassis paint affectation or the overvoltage of the subsystems.

During the report, lots of plots and maps obtained from the simulator will be showed to the reader to see how the different improvements affect. Finally, a 90 days mission simulation will be done in order to comment the obtained results.

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