Hercules

Hercules is an OBC unit designed to have redundancy without losing powerfulness. It features an ARM Cortex R4F 32-Bit RISC CPU with dual core CPUs working in lockstep up to 220MHz. The output signals of each core are compared for redundancy. Both cores and memories have a different physical orientation to make them less susceptible to common mode faults.

The CPU uses ECC on both the flash and the data SRAM, being able to recover from bit flips from SEUs. It also implements parity checks on peripheral memories. The OBC also integrates two 9DoF IMUs for redundancy, a FRAM memory for critical data storage, a NOR Flash and an SD Card for high density less critical data storage.

The top half of the PCB has a daughterboard adapter that is compatible with GAUSS UHF radio and with a PWM motor and coils driver daughterboard. The OBC allows for multiple pinout configurations in order to make it compatible with most of the subsystems on the microsatellite market.