Low Cost Solar Simulator

This project describes the development of a 1C6412 1U Light source which is a part of big project (Low Cost Solar Simulator). The main purpose of this project is to develop low cost light source which provides a controllable indoor test facility under laboratory conditions and used in electrical engineering labs to measure photoelectric effect and to characterize, compare solar cells and to design and test solar energy convertors.
This project involves merger of different technology fields like High Power Electronics, Embedded systems, Mechanical Engineering and Software Engineering. The main challenge was to create similar commercial light source but with low cost and in very compact space (100 mm x 100mm x 300mm).
First step was to design 1C601 Power Driver board capable of driving four halogen lamps (each lamp power consumption 50 watt) on a PCB of 100mm x 100 mm. The power side and Logic side are galvanically isolated including the current sense feedback. EMI filter for each channel driver is added to make the board compliant with EMC European regulations. There are two other crucial parts of the system are 1C601 Control board and 1C601 Filter board. Filter board is used to filter main input power line from the high frequency noise either generated by natural or artificial source and Control board bear all the computation power. 1C6412 Light source is equipped with 8 bit I2C (Address programmable by DIP switch) and USB 2.0 for debugging.
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Last step was to develop complete command set and basic communication protocol. Command which should be able to get status of system variables and to configure the system.
This thesis is considered to be a blue print of 1C6412 Light source and contribution to the Low Cost Nano Satellites test benches. Future work regarding 1C6412 is to add code of the PID control algorithm to control the internal temperature of the 1C6412 light source, main system loop and PCB fabrications.
This Project was developed with the vision to introduce low cost space technology equipments in the high schools and colleges of Italy so that young generation should be able to think and participate in the field of space technology