COTS Small Board Computers for Resilient Sensor Data Acquisition and Processing in Nanosatellites: Challenges and Opportunities

The proliferation of nanosatellites, particularly CubeSats, has not only revolutionized space access but has also driven the demand for efficient and resilient onboard sensor systems. Advanced sensor payloads, ranging from optical imagers to inertial measurement units, generate complex and high-volume data streams that must be reliably acquired, processed, and transmitted under stringent constraints. Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Small Board Computers (SBCs), such as Raspberry Pi and NVIDIA Jetson platforms, offer a cost-effective and computationally capable solution for this onboard data handling. However, their deployment in the harsh Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment presents significant challenges, including the coupled effects of radiation susceptibility, thermal management, and power limitations, which demand robust software resilience. This paper reviews state-of-the-art methods for deploying COTS SBCs for sensor data acquisition and processing in space, synthesizing mitigation strategies and identifying critical research gaps. It highlights the necessity for standardized holistic testing frameworks, the development of hierarchical fault recovery architectures, and secure over-the-air update mechanisms tailored to sensor-driven nanosatellite missions. The findings lay the foundation for developing next-generation, resilient nanosatellite sensor systems leveraging COTS computing platforms.