MDA

Motor Drives

command and control solutions for pointing and/or deployment of subsystems on-board satellites

MDMotor-Drive-ElectronicsA’s Motor Drive Electronics (MDE) provides a reliable and effective solution to the command and control of the mechanical and electrical hardware associated with the mechanisms used for the pointing and/or deployment of various other subsystems on-board satellites.

Each MOE board provides an interface capable of driving two stepper motors with four uncommitted H-Bridge Drivers each with adjustable current and voltage limits​. Full-step and Half-step operation is supported as are unrestricted drive modes capable of handling any duty cycle as well as synchronized or unsynchronized stepping of the attached motors.​ As an added benefit, the MDE can also be operated in a motor heating mode that is capable of heating motors directly through their windings alleviating the need for separate heaters.

Individual MDE boards can be combined with controller and power boards to form a scalable unit for centralized control of motors on-board the satellite​. In this regard, MDA has developed an Antenna Pointing Mechanism Electronics (APME) unit which consists of 12 MDE boards that can independently control ​12 on-board steerable antennas in two axes.

The MDA APME has flight heritage in Medium Earth orbit with a commercial communication satellite constellation.