Converter Modules Power AI-Enabled Satellite Apps
The demand for satellites with sophisticated computational capabilities and reliable, robust onboard processor systems is challenging the latest ultra‑deep‑submicron FPGAs and ASICs, as well as their power-delivery networks.
On that front, Vicor has been working with a UK-based space consultancy and design firm, Spacechips, which launched a compact AI accelerator card to enable in-orbit AI for applications such as Earth observation, signal intelligence, and ISR. Vicor's radiation-tolerant, high-current-density DC-DC converter modules power the AI1 transponder for innovative computing applications
This opened the door to Spacechips introducing its AI1 transponder, a small on-board processor card containing an ACAP (Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform) AI accelerator.
The smart, reconfigurable receiver and transmitter delivers up to 133 teraoperations per second (TOPS) of performance. Such performance, in turn, enables new Earth-observation, in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM); signals intelligence (SIGINT); and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and telecommunication applications to support real-time, autonomous computing.
Vicor helped Spacechips overcome significant power-management challenges unique to space-based design, from concentrating power density amid tight SWAP budgets to radiation hardening and operational redundancy. New levels of processing power spawn imaginative new applications in space and on Earth, harnessing these powerful artificial-intelligence compute engines to deliver in-orbit AI that can address a variety of Earth-bound and space-related problems.
Vicor Factorized Power Architecture separates the functions of DC-DC conversion into independent radiation-tolerant modules. The bus converter module (BCM) provides the isolation and step down to 28 V, while the pre-regulator module (PRM) delivers regulation to a voltage transformation module (VTM) or current multiplier that performs the 28-V DC transformation to 0.8 V.
Vicor power-converter modules also feature a dual powertrain, which, for fault-intolerant space applications, provides built-in redundancy that allows loads to be driven at 100% on each side of the powertrain.
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About the Author
Alix Paultre
Editor-at-Large, Microwaves & RF
Alix is Editor-at-Large for Microwaves & RF.
An Army veteran, Alix Paultre was a signals intelligence soldier on the East/West German border in the early ‘80s, and eventually wound up helping launch and run a publication on consumer electronics for the U.S. military stationed in Europe. Alix first began in this industry in 1998 at Electronic Products magazine, and since then has worked for a variety of publications, most recently as Editor-in-Chief of Power Systems Design.
Alix currently lives in Wiesbaden, Germany.