Power: Transmitter Model
Description
The transmitter power model can be added to a transmitter to allow it to draw power from the battery or circuit. A power model is a component model that can be attached to a component for the use of connecting a standard component to the power bus. The transmitter model will determine if the transmitter is currently transmitting and drawing power from the circuit based on the power used by the antenna.
Example Use Cases
- Realistic Power Usage: Modelling realistic current draws from transmitting data to a ground station when in orbit.
- Data Network Management: Managing low amounts of battery power with downlinking data to a ground station.
Module Implementation
By default, if the transmitter is not transmitting any data in that update step, there will be no power drawn from the circuit. If the transmitter starts to transmit, a calculation determines the power that is being consumed by the device. The power is taken from the decibel power level of the transmitter. To calculate the wattage of the device at that time, the wattage \(W\) can be calculated as:
where \(P\) is the power of the transmitter in decibels. To calculate the resistance \(R\) of the node, the input voltage \(V\) from the circuit is used with the formula:
Based on the formula, if the voltage is zero and the battery is depleted (or a circuit is broken), then the transmitter will not allow any data to be transmitted at that point.
Assumptions/Limitations
- The module only updates the power levels if the transmitter is transmitting data.
- The power levels are independent of the data amount that is being sent.