Reusable Fault Isolators for Power Distribution in Space Power Systems

摘要

A new active protection scheme involving current limiters- Latch Current Limiter and Retriggerable Latch Current Limiter is developed in the form of Hybrid Microcircuits (HMC) and Surface-mount Technology (SMT) for applications in space power system. Current limiters can be used in the place of passive fuses to provide overload protection without generating any voltage transients on the BUS. They also preclude any inrush current on the BUS and are capable of re-powering the load unlike fuses once overload is removed. More importantly, their performance can be tested and characterized even in flight hardware unlike fuses. SMT versions are planned to use for the short-term and eventually the scheme will be qualified in HMC to achieve small size and high reliability. Exhaustive series of tests are carried out to confirm the satisfactory working of these HMCs. The challenges in realization of these circuits in HMCs and practical test results are presented and discussed in this paper.