Measurement-Based Neural Network Technique for Modeling the Low-Frequency Electric Field Radiated Behavior of Satellite Units

In this work, a machine learning technique employing a measurement-driven artificial neural network (ANN) architecture is proposed as a solution to the precise determination of the position and the moment of equivalent electric dipoles for unit characterization. These dipoles are used to match the generated electric field from various sources inside the spacecraft, during space exploration missions. Various methodologies for unit characterization have been proposed in the literature, the most common being the heuristic approaches, least squares variants, method of auxiliary sources, etc. Contrary to the previous time-consuming post-process methodologies, the proposed electric dipole neural network (EDMnet) can offer a real-time characterization of the measured unit (Device Under Test) after a proper training stage, especially as a fast pre-compliance method. The network uses the electric field vector, measured at 14 discrete locations, as input and reports the position and moment of the electric dipole that best matches the measured fields. In this work, various ANN architectures are tested and compared in order to select the optimal EDMnet parameters for accurate source identification. It is shown that the size of the artificial training data affects the performance of the network. The proposed EDMnet can provide accuracy in mm-scale, with respect to dipole positioning, greater than 99% in dipole moment prediction.