AmbiSpace is Ambimat Electronics’ aerospace and space-electronics practice. Ambimat has served design, development and fabrication needs for ISRO, India for over three decades, delivering ground checkout and evaluation instrumentation, payload control and telemetry subsystems, and the test equipment used to qualify them.
What Ambimat can do today
AmbiSpace work is delivered as a design and fabrication engagement, not as an off-the-shelf purchase. Ambimat’s scope on these programmes has ranged from PCB layout against a supplied schematic through to full concept-to-fabrication ownership including mechanical design, assembly, burn-in and test software. The starting point is a specification, not a product code.
- Electro-optical payload ground checkout and evaluation instrumentation
- Payload control, timing and telemetry acquisition subsystems
- RF and modulation subsystems, including mixed digital/RF PCB design
- Ground-station control and monitoring units
- Test, continuity and validation equipment with its own reporting software
Several of the systems below share a common engineering approach. A motherboard plus daughter-board architecture keeps a design open to later expansion; the electronics are housed in rack-mountable 2U or 4U chassis, or in machined aluminium tray stacks where mechanical stability matters more; and completed units are subjected to a 168-hour burn-in test before they leave the laboratory. Where the deliverable is a tester rather than a flight-support subsystem, the hardware is accompanied by Ambimat-written software for automated test sequencing and report generation. The wider capability is described under hardware design, manufacturing, assembly and testing.
Historical projects
The systems below are bespoke engineering projects previously delivered for space and aerospace customers, including ISRO’s Space Applications Centre. They are a record of project experience. They are not a catalogue, none of them is offered for sale, and the designs belong to the programmes they were built for.
Ambimat has been a design partner for products used in the Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan missions.
Selected projects with their own detail pages
Data Handling Unit
Conditioned payload data for a computer-based acquisition system during ground testing of electro-optical remote-sensing sensors, with a selectable analog quick-look channel.
Spacecraft Interface Simulator
Stood in for the spacecraft mainframe during ground testing, generating the clocks and command signals a payload needed in its absence.
Cable Tester-04 Cable Harness Tester
A bespoke harness continuity tester developed for and supplied to ISRO, with interchangeable connector jigs and its own reporting software.
Further projects delivered
These systems were delivered to the same customers and to the same engineering standard, and are recorded here rather than on pages of their own.
Payload Controller Subsystem
Generated all the timing and control signals required for payload operation and acquired telemetry data of the payload’s health-monitoring parameters. It connected serially to the spacecraft computer. The mechanical structure housing the electronics was realised as a stack of firmly held trays, each milled from a single piece of solid aluminium alloy. Like the other flight-support subsystems it passed flight-model 168-hour burn-in testing.
Payload Status Indicator
Interfaced with a computer and acquired payload health-monitoring data in analog and digital formats over telemetry channels received from the payload. It formed part of the electro-optical ground checkout and evaluation instrumentation, alongside the Data Handling Unit and the Spacecraft Interface Simulator.
Automated Weather Station Monitoring System
Delivered from concept through to fabrication for ISRO’s Space Applications Centre. The deliverable was the AWS Data Interface Unit: a rack-mounted instrument with a front-panel display and controls, housing the acquisition electronics on internal boards. Its rear panel carries separate connector groups for the station receive inputs and for simulator outputs, so the unit can both take data from an automated weather station and stand in for one during testing.
Control Unit for C-Band Upconvertor
A microcontroller-based unit used to control and monitor the switching of an up-converter from its front panel, in local or remote mode. It also controlled and monitored the switching path of two up-converters in the uplink transmit chain. Housed in a rack-mountable 2U chassis, the fabricated system was successfully subjected to a 168-hour burn-in test in the laboratory.
QPSK Modulator
Ambimat’s scope here was PCB layout from a supplied schematic, through to fabrication. The layout mixed digital and RF sections on a single six-layer board: the digital section comprised an FPGA with its associated buffers and drivers, while the RF section carried a two-way 90-degree power combiner/splitter, an SPDT switch and a power amplifier for the transmitted RF signal. The modulator was successfully subjected to 168-hour burn-in environmental testing. It is a worked example of the mixed-signal layout capability described under PCB design and layout.
On-Line Monitor
A one-to-one cable extender with signal monitoring provided through a banana socket pin for each connection, covering several different types of D-type connector. Ambimat also provided the facility for active monitoring of digital signals on the system.
Engineering a bespoke system
If you have a ground checkout, payload interface or test-equipment requirement, the starting point is your specification rather than a product code. Ambimat’s scope can cover system architecture, schematic and PCB layout, mechanical design and fabrication, assembly, firmware, qualification and the test software that goes with the hardware.