Virtual measurement of spacecraft solar array power loss in partially shaded condition

In this study, the impact of partially shading on the electrical performance of solar array is investigated. With small amount of the solar cells are shaded, the output power degradation could be much more. This is critical for space applications because the partially shading cause by the spacecraft is usually unavoidable and the output power degradation of solar array might cause safety problem. A method for measuring the power loss in virtual environment is proposed. The contour of spacecraft is modelled in virtual environment to generate the shadow graphs on solar arrays. Based on the shadow graphs, the characteristics of solar arrays are calculated to measure the power loss. The implement bases on parallel computing. Compared to the conventional implement, the parallel implement is faster and introduce not accuracy degradation.