Overview of Architectures for Satellite’s Regulated Bus Power System

The power supply subsystem of satellite is the core constant, throughout the whole flight stage. The solar array-battery power system is the main selection for the regulated bus power supply system architecture. The power conditioning unit is responsible for bus voltage regulating and energy management, thus supplying the high-performance steady bus to spacecraft payload. The architecture of the power subsystem must consider system overall efficiency, bus static output characteristics, reliability, modularity, power density, even control methods and other technical specifications. In this paper, the working principle and performance of different power supply system architectures are analyzed, concerning the solar array power regulation, the charging and discharging regulation of battery, the battery charging control strategy, and the bus voltage stabilization. Therefore, the power system designers can make choice of a power system architecture according to the different tracks, load characteristics, solar array configuration, battery configuration, satellite's weight, and thermal control system.