Electrical design of a solar array for LEO satellites

Abstract

During daylight, the solar array of low earth orbit satellites harvests electrical power to operate satellites. The power conversion of the solar array is carried out by control of the operation point using the solar array regulator when the solar array faces the sunlight. Thus, the design of the solar array should comply with not only the power requirement of satellite system but also the input voltage requirement of the solar array regulator. In this paper, the design requirements of the solar array for low earth orbit satellites are defined, and the means of satisfying these requirements are described. In addition, the architecture of a multi-distributed interface is suggested to maximize the power harvested from a solar array having high temperature deviation between each panel. The power analysis in this paper shows the optimal number of multi-distributed interfaces with a converter.