How do I decide which ARM board to go for if I am aiming to use it as a micro-controller to run sensors, actuators, motors, and solar panels? And I wish to power up the board via Li-ion battery pack.
Interesting discussion, thanks for bringing it to my attention!
This will also interest carlosdelfino, as we had a previous discussion about rad-hard (radiation hardened) microcontrollers.
You can find ARM Cortex-M processors qualified for harsh environments. This is very specialist though... so rare and most likely not too cheap.
It might be more viable for you to use alternative methods like more redundancy, clever error corrections, different principles to achieve the same thing but in a different way (so if a device hangs or an algorithm is disturbed, you have another way to get the information). After all, once it's up you won't be able to plug your JTAG/debugger and reprogram it!!!
Want to read more?
I'm interested to hear about your progress on the subject!
Great input, Alban!
I'd like to add that it's possible to make a backup-system, eg. in case you're using a standard ARM MCU and the MCU is killed by radiation or a micrometeroid, it could be a good idea to have a backup microcontroller that would kick in, if the primary MCU's "alive" clock goes dead for more than - say - an hour.
This is of course an advanced topic, and a lot can go wrong if not designed and programmed correctly.
-But it might be worth the effort, as it's not cheap to send a device into space.
Another thing you might have in mind, is that if you intend to send a standard device into orbit, it could be a good idea to use one, where the silicon density isn't too high. Eg. I believe a 100nm technology would last longer than a 1nm technology, although it might be a lot slower.
-Also, if you consider using an external crystal or resonator (a resonator is able to handle stronger shocks; a crystal might break if falling from 1m onto a hard floor) - it might be a good idea also to be able to switch to the internal oscillator.
STM's devices, for instance will start up on the internal oscillator, and if the external osciallator does not start up, they can continue running on the internal oscillator.
If using UART and a non-crystal oscillator, I recommend using a low baud-rate, because that allows a wider frequency deviation (tolerance).
-Oh, and yes ... remember to post status updates, please. -This is a very interesting project.