Payload-XL: A Platform for the In-Orbit Validation of the BRAVE FPGA

• Published in: IEEE embedded systems letters Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 93 - 96
• Main Authors: Viel, Felipe, Gouveia, Kleber R., Costa, Edilberto, Oliveira, Marcio, Boing, Miguel, Mattos, Andre Martins Pio de, Marcelino, Gabriel Mariano, Codinachs, David Merodio, Seman, Laio Oriel, Bezerra, Eduardo Augusto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.06.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aerospace environments; CubeSat; Design for experiments; Embedded systems; European Space Agency; Field programmable gate arrays; FPGA; Hardware; hardware experiments; R&D; Research & development; Routing; Satellites; Space missions; Task analysis
• ISSN: 1943-0663; 1943-0671
• DOI: 10.1109/LES.2022.3191638

Design and verification techniques targeting the space environment are widely used to explore the reliability levels of embedded systems for Cubesats. Considering that, we carried out a study to select and to adapt a design flow to be used as a guide for the development of Cubesats. The chosen design and development flow was used in a case study of a board, called Payload-XL, conceived to be the computing module of a Cubesat. The primary purpose of Payload-XL is to validate the big reprogrammable array for versatile environments (BRAVE) FPGA from Nanoxplore, in orbit. Research and development activities were carried out to integrate the GOMX-5 mission through a partnership between the Federal University of Santa Catarina, the European Space Agency, Cobham Gaisler, GMV, CBK, and GomSpace. The results demonstrate that Payload-XL innovates as a validation platform for the BRAVE FPGA and also brings mechanisms to reconfigure it remotely in orbit. Furthermore, the results show that Payload-XL complies with the power, size, and requirements of the GOMX-5 mission.