Design And Development Of Ground Test Equipment For Satellite-Born Electric Field Meter

Earth space is the environment which is closely related to human activity while electric field whose value and change involve the activities of solar, thunder and seismic and the pollution of space environment is an important parameter for the research of space weather and space environment. The electric field meter is mainly used to measure space electric field. The data it acquires can be used for research of weather phenomenon such as wind, cloud, thunder, rain and also the contrast of electric signals of plasma. Electric field meter offers the scientific data of space electric field to human for electric laws research. According to the task requirements of satellite-born electric meter, this topic develops and studies on design of ground test equipment and solves the test problems faced by electric field meter before the united test.This thesis analyzes the design demands and working principles of ground test equipment which is for satellite-born electric meter. Ground test equipment adopts FPGA as the center control cell and CAN bus as the data bus. Their control circuits and interfaces are discussed. USB 2.0 interface is adopted to realize high speed and reliable communications between host computer and ground test equipment The software which runs on the host computer is designed for the friendly operation environment for users. The ground test equipment has 8 channels for analog input and therefore it is able to convert analog signals into digital signals and transfers the results to host computer for observation. Ground test equipment sends control signals to satellite-born electric meter to make it work in different corresponding modes. It also sends out command data and time code to satellite-born electric meter through CAN bus data interface to carry out the test of remote control channel and time calibration.Ground test equipment designed and introduced by the thesis has good expandability. Consequently it is able to be modified to achieve other expected goals. In addition to what has been mentioned above, although the thesis which has focused on ground test equipment implementation, the method of utilizing FPGA to control CAN controller is also applicable to other field, such as aerospace control. Therefore the results of this thesis have important reference value for future practical engineer application.