ABSTRACT
Control of electric motors in a precise manner has proven to be a vital and challenging mainstay within the aerospace industry. The utility and efficiency of Digital Converter motors has led to their wide-spread use across many aspects of a spacecraft design, from high-power mobility applications to ultralow-power camera shutters. The common bond between these motors is that they all require an electronics solution to power, control, and maintain them. In a centralized motor control electronics system, the connection between the electronics interface and the actuator assembly is composed of the motor, encoder, resolver, brake, temperature sensor, heater, and force sensor. With thousands of wires exiting the warm box area, a corresponding heat loss occurs that is directly related to the amount of copper in the wires or flex-print cables. This means that additional spacecraft power will be necessary to keep the electronics above an acceptable cold temperature limit.
