Digital Twin for Spacecraft Battery Health Estimation and Prediction
Problem Description
A digital twin enables a spacecraft to assess and predict its own health without requiring data to be downlinked and analyzed on the ground. Letting spacecraft operate more independently will become more important as we send more complicated systems to the Moon and Mars.
Research Aims
A payload was created to exercise and measure Lithium Ion batteries aboard the spacecraft Mercury One built by Proteus Space, which launched in November of 2025. As the batteries degrade, the payload estimates the current battery health and the battery capacity in the future. Later in the mission, the battery capacity can be measured and compared against the earlier predictions.
Associated Students
- Adam Zufall
- Ayush Patnaik
- Jackson Fogelquist
- Ansha Prashanth
Associated Publications
- "Machine Learning Detection of Lithium Plating in Lithium-ion Cells: A Gaussian Process Approach", ACC, 2026.
- "On-Orbit Digital Twin for Spacecraft Battery State and Health Estimation", ASCEND, 2026.
- "A Real-Time Embedded Framework for EKF-Based State-of-Charge Estimation of Lithium-Ion Batteries", IEEE, 2026.