Autonomous Power Dispatch for a Deep Space Vehicle Power System

The electric power system of a deep space vehicle is mission-critical, and needs to respond to faults intelligently and autonomously. Such a system consists of solar arrays, batteries, and loads. Its topology is re-configurable by virtue of a number of controllable switches. In this paper, an algorithm is set forth that decides how to operate the system under both normal and faulted conditions. Operational decisions include shedding loads, switching lines, and controlling battery charging, based on the importance of the loads and the transmission loss. As part of this algorithm, an optimal power flow problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear program. Results of case studies considering different faults in the system are presented.