Fault Analysis and Mitigation Techniques of the I2C Bus for Nanosatellite Missions

Despite the reliability concerns that are associated with the I2C bus, it is still one of the most popular on-board data busses to be used in nanosatellite missions. This paper provides a detailed fault analysis for the I2C bus in the context of nanosatellite missions, and consequently investigates and proposes potential mitigation techniques. The failure of the I2C bus is a risk that most CubeSat missions has to deal with, as the related bus failures can cause some catastrophic failures. Therefore, this study analyzes the I2C bus characteristics, the hardware and software requirements, and the key factors leading to I2C bus failure. By conducting experimental testing using the appropriate hardware and software to construct a comprehensive list of I2C bus requirements, characteristics, and failures. Based on the experimental testing possible mitigation approaches are proposed and finally a qualitative risk analysis is delivered to measure the impact of the methods on the overall mission success. The study shows high influence of the I2C bus on the CubeSat health and mission success, thus emphasizing on the importance of design considerations to reduce missions’ risk level, as well as counting for runtime failures that can occur during mission operation.