SherpaEngineering

Space

Life Support System

SHERPA ENGINEERING is involved in the activities related to the Life Support System (LSS) in the space sector.

A Life Support System is defined as a set of technologies making possible the survival of a man in space.

Our expertise in System Engineering, Predictive Control and Modelling, makes possible innovative projects with ESA (European Space Agency). One of the ESA objectives is the development of an artificial life support system for long term space flight.

Life Support System activities at Sherpa

The Sherpa skills are the following :

The System Engineering approach including the representation of the steering system and operating system.
Model Based Predictive Control and energy management
Modeling and simulation of the closed loop system

Model system - System Engineering

On a project like Melissa, it is necessary to consider a collaborative approach to answer to complex demands, to capitalize the know-how to model the system over the life cycle, to formalize the process of moving towards an agile system
The implementation of the ES approach requires both
- Maturity on the methodological principles and appropriate organizations,
- Use techniques of multi-views representation : mission and technical requirements and associated validation tests, modeling functional and physical architecture and behavioral models.
- Tools for managing all of these models and data. (see SMARTEAM, Arkitekt)
- Sherpa provides the transverse steering systems engineering projects in support of ESA's life, the definition of the repository system and the increasing maturity (CMMI).

Behavior models , configuration and simulation

Sherpa Engineering performs modeling and simulation studies for design, sizing and validation of systems by accurately estimating their level of performance in their environmental context.

We have developed a library of polymorphic components and super elements in Simulink (PhiSim), allowing us to assemble complex physical models.

Example of Biorat model
This library is used for editing and simulating of the overall system dynamic models including the representation of actuators, physical system, sensors, and control environment,
The model is used to develop and validate strategies and optimal flight control laws at different phases of development cycle.

Control and Energy management

The Sherpa Engineering skills cover the entire development of control systems. The pilot phase MELiSSA is being established at the UAB (Autonomous University of Barcelona) ; reactors and greenhouse of higher plants are being started. Sherpa uses the predictive control PCR library located in Schneider PLC to regulate the compartments (temperature, humidity, pH, pressure, ...).
The approach is the following :
- Specification of control laws : filtering, degraded modes, supervision (level 2), multivariable system control (level 1) and actuators control (level 0)
- Supervision man machine interfaces design (in partnership with NTE (Spain), control and real-time display
By choosing the most appropriate type of control for the application Sherpa Engineering meets the needs of performance, stability and robustness.

Electronics

Sherpa Engineering is heavily involved in the design and validation of hardware architectures including packaging of sensors, computer, power interface, HMI and communication