Research on key technologies of on-board computer design with commercial off-the-shelf devices

According to the requirements of high capability, high reliability, light weight, low power consumption and low cost for on-board computers (OBC) for space robot control, an on-board computer system was designed by using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices. The dual fault tolerance architecture was introduced in the system in which the ARM (advanced RISC machine) processor was regarded as the data processing kernel. The key technologies, including the error detection and correction (EDAC) based on the field programmable gate array (FPGA), the bridge of bus converter between ARM and CAN controller, and the multi-watch dog and power supply with latch-up handling, were realized in the OBC system. The experimental results demonstrate that the developed system can satisfy the requirements for space robot control.