Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis presents how radio frequency electromagnetic noise from power supplies can be a limiting factor in how well scientific instruments on CubeSats can perform. Instruments such as microwave radiometers, wide-band software defined radios, or precipitation instruments are all affected by electronic and radio frequency (RF) noise. Current hybrid DC/DC converter technologies can also be prone to failure and anomalies during flight. A solution to this problem is to create a DC/DC power converter with a low-noise circuit design. This thesis presents a solution for a CubeSat power supply to become more effective and efficient by reducing the noise coupled through power supply switching so that the power converter does not affect the CubeSat instruments. A fully integrated solution has reduced noise on the output of the soft-switching resonant buck converter device. This design includes a fixed frequency and variable capacitor for its control scheme and has been validated by a build-and-test method.