Date of Award

2007

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Gao, Zhiqiang

Subject Headings

Solar batteries, Switching circuits, Power management and distribution, Space power systems, Solar array regulator, Control systems, Limit cycle

Abstract

This research focuses on the development and control of a solar array switching module (SASM). The objective of studying this problem was to develop the SASM hardware and design a controller for the SASM which would effectively deal with the wide ranging dynamics of the system and limit oscillations in the steady state. Initially an intuitive controller was designed to control the SASM. Following this an analysis of the SASM was preformed to create a model which described the SASMs operation. Using the system model, an analysis of a PI and a PII controller was completed which found that both controllers had an undesirable oscillation in the steady state due to the incremental nature of the SASM. To solve this oscillation problem a novel implementation of an integrator is conceived and implemented. Both simulation and hardware test results show that this novel integrator implementation is capable of controlling the SASM without excessive switching

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