Altium has supplied Altium Designer unified licenses with a market value of US$71,960 to UTIAS/SFL to support the graduate lab's research into novel technologies in space. This graduate training will strengthen the Canadian skills base in space systems engineering, dramatically speed up the development of space systems and lower the cost of space missions.
"Altium Designer allows us to develop custom electronics quickly, efficiently and with fewer errors. This tool has been very valuable in keeping the cost of development as low as possible," says the Director of UTIAS/SFL, Dr. Robert E. Zee.
Altium continues to develop the concept of unified electronics design, in which board layout, schematics design and embedded software, and the flexible functionality inherent in programmable hardware such as FPGAs, are managed as a single design environment.
The UTIAS/SFL students will use the unified embedded design tools and board-level design tools in Altium Designer to design a range of computer and radio boards for its CanX satellite program.
These programs employ nanosatellites (very small satellites under 10 kilograms) for high-performance space missions. The latest satellite -- CanX-2 -- will test a new propulsion system, custom radios, computers, attitude sensors and actuators, and a dual-band GPS receiver. The mission will provide valuable insight and data into novel technologies planned for use in BRITE Constellation (CanX-3, a space astronomy mission) and the CanX-4/-5 precise formation flying mission.
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About Altium Designer
Altium Designer is the electronics design industry's only electronics product development system that removes the barriers imposed by disparate design flows and unifies the different design disciplines involved in electronics product development -- the design of the hardware, the programmable hardware and the embedded software. Altium Designer's unified design environment means users can harness the potential of the latest electronics technologies, and move to a 'soft' design methodology without the need to acquire specialist programmable device expertise. This provides companies with increased design flexibility, reduced production costs and quickens time to market. Altium Designer also delivers the freedom to move between any device, from any vendor, at any time. It lowers total cost of ownership by eliminating the need to integrate extra devices at extra cost to increase functionality, or to create a complete solution. For more information, please visit http://www.altium.com/Products/AltiumDesigner/.
About UTIAS/SFL
UTIAS/SFL collaborates with business, government and academic institutions on spacecraft projects and the development of new space technologies. As a laboratory at the University of Toronto, its aim is to promote the use of novel technologies in space, and to train graduate students to strengthen the Canadian skill base in space systems engineering. The vision of the Space Flight Laboratory is to revolutionize the space industry by enabling science and technology missions and the provision of space services at least one hundred times cheaper than present day missions, with spacecraft development taking less than two years. More information is available at http://www.utias-sfl.net/.
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