Dynamic frequency scheduling for CubeSat's on-board and data handling subsystem

Abstract

CubeSat is a small-sized satellite that provides a cheaper option for the manufacturer to have a fully operational satellite. Due to its size, CubeSat can only generate limited power, and this will restrict its functionality. This research aims to improve CubeSat’s power consumption by implementing the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) technique to on-board and data handling subsystem (OBDH). DVFS will find the best operating frequency to execute all of OBDH’s task. This paper explains how we determined the task set, representing all routine tasks performed by OBDH during normal operation mode. We have simulated the task set using two DVFS algorithms, static earliest deadline first (EDF) and cycle conserving edf (CC EDF). The result shows that both scheduling algorithms give a similar result to our task set. However, when the scheduler is configured as non-preemptive, the simulator failed to schedule the critical task. It means that the system fails to work as intended. Therefore, we conclude that we need to implement mixed-criticality scheduling to prevent critical tasks from being aborted by the system.