Design and Development of a High-Reliability Electronic Power System for Lunar Zebro Rover Operations
M. Minten (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
C.J.M. Verhoeven – Mentor (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
G. Gaydadjiev – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
A. Noroozi – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
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Abstract
The Lunar Zebro team creates a rover that will be deployed on the lunar surface. The rover consists of multiple subsystems, each with its own power requirements. To ensure reliable operation, the rover is equipped with another subsystem, the Electrical Power System (EPS). This system distributes electrical power throughout the rover, continuously monitors the remaining energy stored in the battery pack, and manages the charging and discharging processes. The EPS also consists of a Battery management system (BMS) which monitors the batteries and keep them within a save voltage and current range. This thesis presents the design, implementation, and validation of a battery management system and battery pack for integration into the Lunar Zebro EPS. A conceptual EPS design with BMS and battery pack is created using energy budget estimation and power modeling. A simulation tool is developed to evaluate the charging and discharging behaviour during walking and charging scenarios of the rover throughout the mission. Based on these simulations, a suitable battery type is selected with focus on temperature tolerance, charging behaviour and reliable operation.
The Battery Management System developed in this work is designed and tested for its protective features, including overvoltage (OV) protection, undervoltage (UV) protection, overcurrent discharge (OCD) protection, and short-circuit discharge (SCD) protection. The BMS operates using I2C communication with an additional CRC bit to protect against bit errors. This work builds on earlier iterations of the existing EPS.
The BMS is built as a modular unit that can be integrated into the EPS. The bidirectional converter is also taken and redesigned as a separate module to improve accessibility and simplify debugging. This modular design improves development and testing at the cost of reduced compactness. Finally, the battery pack, the individual cells, and the BMS are tested to gain a clear understanding of the system behaviour in the rover. The results show that the BMS and the battery pack behave well and operate as intended. The integration of the bidirectional converter is shown to work conceptually. Some issues remain in the current physical board, which could not be resolved within the scope of this thesis and are left for future work.
https://zebro.tudelft.nl/