ISIS On Board Computer

Description

The ISIS On Board computer (IOBC) is a flight-proven, high-performance processing unit based around an ARM9 processor with a speed of 400 MHz, making it one of the most capable on-board computers for CubeSats, currently available on the market within the same price range. Its pluggable daughter board offers additional flexibility and customizability by providing a wide range of extra interfaces for payloads, sensors or actuators in a compact form factor.

Specifications

Interfaces

• I²C master or slave mode
• SPI master mode up to 8 slaves
• 2x UART (RS232 + RS232 / RS485 / RS422)
• General Purpose Input / Output pins (GPIO)
• ADC: 8 channel, 10-bit
• PWM: 6 channel
• JTAG for programming and debugging
• Dedicated debug LEDs and UART
• USB host and device
• Image sensor interface

Software

Hardware Abstraction Layer Library
This library supports the following peripherals:

• I²C master mode
• I²C slave mode
• Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
• UART (RS232, RS422, RS485)
• SPI master mode
• FRAM read and write
• SD card using failsafe FAT journalling filesystem
• Real-Time Clock (RTC) and OBC internal timer (RTT)
• Debug LED control

This library offers the following additional functionality:

• Checksumming (CRC-8, CRC-16, CRC-32)
• Interface to iOBC Supervisor
• Watchdog kicking
• Timekeeping
• FreeRTOS operating system
• AT91 library from Atmel

Qualification and Acceptance testing

*QT is performed on the design/qualification model
*AT is performed on the unit to be shipped

In the box

• iOBC main board
• JTAG programmer / debugger + USB cable
• Adapter board (including debugging UART to USB conversion) + USB cable
• 2 x 2 GB high-reliability SD cards
• Power break-out board for easy connection to the power supply
• USB drive containing manuals, iOBC SDK installer, and applicable software libraries

FAQ

How can I interface my payload to the OBC?
We offer a standard daughterboard and custom daughterboard which can be used to interface payloads and other sub-systems to the OBC.

What’s the difference between the OBC motherboard and its daughterboard?
The OBC Motherboard is the core system featuring all the peripherals, the various memories and main I2C and power interfaces to the bus – its design is fixed. The daughterboard is the modular board designed to break out the many physical interfaces made available by motherboard peripherals (SPI, GPIO, ADC, UART…). The daughterboard can then be configured and designed to accommodate all or only the required set of interfaces and complemented with other functionalities specific to your payload and mission requirements.

Can I plug the solar panels data interfaces or my payload to the OBC?
Yes, either through the main CKSB connector on the main or through the customizable daughterboard.

Can I use the ISISPACE OBC as a payload OBC or data handling unit?
Yes, the IOBC – OnBoard Computer can be configured in slave mode and co-habit with another master OBC and another slave OBCs within the same satellite architecture.

Which software do you provide with your OBC?
A full software development kit is provided by default with low-level access to the OBC peripheral drivers. When you purchase other ISISpace subsystems, flight-proven libraries can be provided optionally to accelerate your flight software development with high-level functionalities built on top of the OBC drivers.

Which programming language is being used on the OBC?
The software for the ISIS On-Board Computer is written in the C language.

Which OS is supported by the OBC?
By default, FreeRTOS. Additionally, the ISISpace OBC is compatible with the KubOS developed by Kubos.

View General FAQ »