• SpaceWire simulator validation satellite PLATO

Space scientific missions are becoming more complex demanding to handle a huge amount of data. In a satellite, payload networks have to deal with very high data-rates and in such context, being able to manage the transmission from payloads to on-board mass memory became a challenge. A network simulator is a tool able to strongly help the system engineers in the assessment of a network identifying eventually bottlenecks in an early phase of development. The Simulator for HI-Speed NEtworks (SHINE) is an OMNeT++ based simulator fully compliant to the SpaceWire and SpaceFibre standards (data communication standards in a space application) able to define the topology of a network and provide mechanisms to find and improve networks criticalities.
The objectives of the master thesis work are basically two. The first goal has been to use SHINE to simulate and validate the scientific instrument SpaceWire network for the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) mission of the European Space Agency Cosmic Vision programme. Firstly, a preliminary analysis has been performed on the overhead introduced by the data communication protocols involved (SpaceWire, RMAP, CPTP/PUS) in order to understand its impact. Then, the scientific instrument network of PLATO has been modeled and simulated in SHINE measuring the bandwidth of the most critical links in the Instrument Control Unit (ICU). It was also possible to evaluate the most difficult requirement to respect which is the time propagation in the ICU for the time-codes.
Finally, the second goal was to implement a LabView application for the EGSE in order to test the PLATO ICU using real hardware. From these experimental tests, it was possible to understand how the CPU ICU performance could affect and slow down the communication.