Fault Tolerant Nanosatellite Computing on a Budget

In this contribution, we present a CubeSat-compatible on-board computer (OBC) architecture that offers strong fault tolerance to enable the use of such spacecraft in critical and long-term missions. We describe in detail the design of our OBC’s breadboard setup, and document its composition from the component-level, all the way down to the software level. Fault tolerance in this OBC is achieved without resorting to radiation hardening, just intelligent through software. The OBC ages graceful, and makes use of FPGA-reconfiguration and mixed criticality. It can dynamically adapt to changing performance requirements throughout a space mission. We developed a proof-of-concept with several Xilinx Ultrascale and Ultrascale+ FPGAs. With the smallest Kintex Ultrascale+ KU3P device, we achieve 1.94W total power consumption at 300Mhz, well within the power budget range of current 2U CubeSats. To our knowledge, this is the first scalable and COTS-based, widely reproducible OBC solution which can offer strong fault coverage even for small CubeSats. To reproduce this OBC architecture, no custom-written, proprietary, or protected IP is needed, and the needed design tools are available free-of-charge to academics. All COTS components required to construct this architecture can be purchased on the open market, and are affordable even for academic and scientific CubeSat developers

The Φ-Sat-1 mission: the first on-board deep neural network demonstrator for satellite earth observation

Artificial intelligence is paving the way for a new era of algorithms focusing directly on the information contained in the data, autonomously extracting relevant features for a given application. While the initial paradigm was to have these applications run by a server hosted processor, recent advances in microelectronics provide hardware accelerators with an efficient ratio between computation and energy consumption, enabling the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms 'at the edge'. In this way only the meaningful and useful data are transmitted to the end-user, minimising the required data bandwidth, and reducing the latency with respect to the cloud computing model. In recent years, European Space Agency is promoting the development of disruptive innovative technologies on-board Earth Observation missions. In this field, the most advanced experiment to date is the Φ-sat-1, which has demonstrated the potential of Artificial Intelligence as a reliable and accurate tool for cloud detection on-board a hyperspectral imaging mission. The activities involved included demonstrating the robustness of the Intel Movidius Myriad 2 hardware accelerator against ionising radiation, developing a Cloudscout segmentation neural network, run on Myriad 2, to identify, classify, and eventually discard on-board the cloudy images, and assessing of the innovative Hyperscout-2 hyperspectral sensor. This mission represents the first official attempt to successfully run an AI Deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) directly inferencing on a dedicated accelerator on-board a satellite, opening the way for a new era of discovery and commercial applications driven by the deployment of on-board AI

THE SPACE TELESCOPE NINA: RESULTS OF A BEAM TEST CALIBRATION

Abstract In June 1998 the telescope NINA will be launched in space on board of the Russian satellite Resource-01 n.4. The main scientific objective of the mission is the study of the anomalous, galactic and solar components of the cosmic rays in the energy interval 10–200 MeV/n. The core of the instrument is a silicon detector whose performances have been tested with a particle beam at the GSI Laboratory in Germany in 1997; we report here on the results obtained during the beam calibration

The small satellite NINA-MITA to study galactic and solar cosmic rays in low-altitude polar orbit

Abstract The satellite MITA, carrying on board the scientific payload NINA-2, was launched on July the 15th, 2000 from the cosmodrome of Plesetsk (Russia) with a Cosmos-3M rocket. The satellite and the payload are currently operating within nominal parameters. NINA-2 is the first scientific payload for the technological flight of the Italian small satellite MITA. The detector used in this mission is identical to the one already flying on the Russian satellite Resurs-O1 n.4 in a 840-km sun-synchronous orbit, but makes use of the extensive computer and telemetry capabilities of MITA bus to improve the active data acquisition time. NINA physics objectives are to study cosmic nuclei from hydrogen to iron in the energy range between 10 MeV/n and 1 GeV/n during the years 2000–2003, that is the solar maximum period. The device is capable of charge identification up to iron with isotope sensitivity up to oxigen. The 87.3 degrees, 460 km altitude polar orbit allows investigations of cosmic rays of solar and galactic origin, so to study long and short term solar transient phenomena, and the study of the trapped radiation at higher geomagnetic cutoff

A Survey of Lost-in-Space Star Identification Algorithms Since 2009

The lost-in-space star identification algorithm is able to identify stars without a priori attitude information and is arguably the most critical component of a star sensor system. In this paper, the 2009 survey by Spratling and Mortari is extended and recent lost-in-space star identification algorithms are surveyed. The covered literature is a qualitative representation of the current research in the field. A taxonomy of these algorithms based on their feature extraction method is defined. Furthermore, we show that in current literature the comparison of these algorithms can produce inconsistent conclusions. In order to mitigate these inconsistencies, this paper lists the considerations related to the relative performance evaluation of these algorithms using simulation

A European Roadmap to Leverage RISC-V in Space Applications

RISC-V is an open and modular Instruction Set Architecture(ISA) which is rapidly growing in popularity in terrestrial applications. This paper presents the place in future space embedded systems ESA's roadmap for RISC-V based processors. In order to satisfy different applications with contrasting requirements in satellite data systems, four different types of processors are identified: 1) General-Purpose (GP) processors for payloads 2) main platform On-Board Computers (OBCs) controllers 3) low-area/low-power microcontrollers (uCs), 4) enhanced payload processors with support for Artificial Intelligence (AI). We also describe the state of the art of the RISC-V software ecosystem, including the currently available hardware platforms, with a focus on developments for space applications and what has already been done in the European Space Industry. Finally, planned activities are presented, with a focus on the role of the European ecosystem.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Space Systems Egineerin

Radiaton tolerant ATTM-WRTU wireless infrastructure for radiation harsh terrestrial applications

This paper provides an overview of the challenges and solutions for wireless communications for terrestrial applications applied in radiation harsh environments, by utilising the proven designs used in space applications where radiation tolerance is a must. The specific application of using wireless communication in a particle accelerator environment is discussed. A proposed pilot system to demonstrate a reliable and radiation tolerant wireless communication system, inside the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator (Large Hadron Collider at CERN), is proposed. The technical solution, based on the use of the ATTM satellite S-band transceiver in combination with a SDR and PC based server, targeted for the pilot system, is shown

Neutron Radiation Tests of the NEORV32 RISC-V SoC on Flash-Based FPGAs

Highly reliable and customizable micro-processors are critical enablers for future intelligent space platforms. From an architectural point of view, the RISC-V architecture is the current best option for adaptability, with its modular ISA and a multitude of contributors. To implement such a processor at a low price range, companies are looking at reprogrammable Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), which can extend the mission lifetime. SRAM FPGAs are known to be susceptible to low Linear Energy Transfer Single-Event Upsets (SEUs) in the configuration memory, Flash FPGAs on the other hand, are in general immune to such errors. This paper performs for the first time characterization of the open-core NEORV32, a lightweight yet representative RISC-V SoC, and provides insights into the tradeoffs of protection mechanisms against neutron-induced SEUs when this core is implemented in a Flash-based FPGA. The Unmodified core is compared against an ECC-protected version and a register-level TMR with an ECC version. All versions execute the CoreMark benchmark. We show how the addition of ECC protection single-handedly resulted in a more reliable core.</p

Is RISC-V ready for Space? A Security Perspective

Integrated circuits employed in space applications generally have very low-volume production and high performance requirements. Therefore, the adoption of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components and Third Party Intellectual Property cores (3PIPs) is of extreme interest to make system design, implementation and deployment cost-effective and viable w.r.t. performance. On the other hand, this design paradigm exposes the system to a number of security threats both at design-time and at runtime. In this paper, we discuss the security issues related to space applications mainly focusing on threats that come from the adoption of the well-known RISCV microprocessor. We highlight how Hardware Trojan horses (HTHs) and Microarchitectural Side-Channel Attacks (MSCAs) may compromise the overall system operation by either altering its nominal behavior or by stealing secret information. We discuss the security extensions provided by the RISC-V architecture as well as their limitations. The paper is concluded by an overview of the issues that are still open regarding the security of such microprocessor in the space domain. Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Space Systems Egineerin