• State
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 5 replies
  • Subscribers 33 subscribers
  • Views 1199 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Support feedback
Options
Options
Related

This thread has been locked.

If you have a related question, please click the "Ask a related question" button in the top right corner. The newly created question will be automatically linked to this question.

Using Tiva for space application

sai surya teja
Intellectual 560 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: TM4C123GH6PGE

Hi,

I am student from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. We are designing a satellite with  Tiva series  (TM4C123GH6PGE) as the uC of our payload. I have few concerns regarding this. Kindly, clarify my doubts.

1) Single event upsets (SEUs) are more common in space. Can you suggest a software solution to mitigate the effects of SEUs. A solution to at least detect the SEUs is very necessary.

2) Is there any provision to upgrade the industrial grade to space grade ?

3) How to upload code from external micro-controller to Tiva uC? Are there any example codes available?

Thanks in advance.

  • 0
    Guru 92251 points

    sai surya teja said:
    Can you suggest a software solution to mitigate the effects of SEUs. A solution to at least detect the SEUs is very necessary.

    What was the reason a Tiva series device was chosen rather than a Hercules Safety MCU?

    A Hercules Safety MCU has hardware which should help mitigate the effects of SEUs, with the use of ECC in the on-chip memory and lock-stepped dual Cortex R cores.

    [According to this thread https://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/hercules/f/312/p/253920/903627 the Radiation Test Data for Hercules MCUs is only available under a NDA]

    sai surya teja said:
    2) Is there any provision to upgrade the industrial grade to space grade ?

    Space grade parts are listed at http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/high-reliability/space/products.page. There are no Tiva series parts listed.

    sai surya teja said:
    3) How to upload code from external micro-controller to Tiva uC?

    Which type of communication do you need to use to upload code?

    The TivaWareTM Boot Loader USER’S GUIDE SW-TM4C-BOOTLDR-UG-2.1.0.12573 describes the use of UART, I2C, SSI, CAN or USB.

  • 0
    TI__Guru**** 244400 points
    Hello Sai,

    I completely agree with Chester. TM4C is not a apt candidate for the application where Hercules device would be more suitable

    Regards
    Amit
  • 0 in reply to Amit Ashara
    Guru 47900 points

    May I suggest that all, "ground trackers" - present at the launch of this "highly investigated" satellite - re-polish (& reinforce) their tin-hats...

    If poster is properly representative of his group - should not (someone) comment upon the clear, "Mismatch between desire & investigatory effort/capability?"

  • 0 in reply to Chester Gillon
    Intellectual 560 points

    Hi,

    1) The reason for choosing Tiva over Hercules is because of power constraints. We cannot choose MSP430 either because of its low processing capacity. We have finished writing our software for all other functionalities as per the mission requirements.  We are about to start writing software for SEU mitigation. We have seen many small satellites with MSP430 as their uC's. But we do not have a clear idea of their methodology in detecting SEUs. We are sure that MSP430 and Tiva do not have hardware support in detecting SEUs. We would like to know all possible software oriented methods for this solution. Hope you can help us.

    2) I2C would be the best option for uploading a new code according our satellite architecture. I have used LM flash programmer to upload code via UART earlier using bootloader example in Tivaware. But, how do I upload using another micro-controller ?

    Thanks in advance

  • 0 in reply to sai surya teja
    Guru 92251 points

    sai surya teja said:
    We would like to know all possible software oriented methods for this solution.

    I haven't implemented software mitigation for SEUs, but a quick search found ftp://apollo.ssl.berkeley.edu/pub/MAVEN/MAVEN%20Parts%20Selection/1_Microcircuits_Selection/Space_Micro_products_08/IEEE_TTMR_Paper.pdf which summarizes the "Time Redundancy Architecture", but notes that software SEU detection won't find all errors.

    sai surya teja said:
    But, how do I upload using another micro-controller ?

    The TivaWareTM Boot Loader USER’S GUIDE describes the boot loader protocol over I2C. To upload code using another micro-controller requires the micro-controller to use the documented boot loader protocol.