Error Detection and Correction On-Board Nanosatellites Using Hamming Codes

Abstract

The field of nanosatellites is constantly evolving and growing at a very fast speed. This creates a growing demand for more advanced and reliable EDAC systems that are capable of protecting all memory aspects of satellites. The Hamming code was identified as a suitable EDAC scheme for the prevention of single event effects on-board a nanosatellite in LEO. In this paper, three variations of Hamming codes are tested both in Matlab and VHDL. The most effective version was Hamming [16, 11, 4]2. This code guarantees single-error correction and double-error detection. All developed Hamming codes are suited for FPGA implementation, for which they are tested thoroughly using simulation software and optimized.