Actually I have no monetary motivation at all for this controller. I
just want to see amateurs and academics get what the need/deserve
easier.
The cubesat market is insainly expensive. Especially when you can build
a comparable system for testing rather than go all out for a space grade
sat right off the bat.
I will likely develop 2 or 3 small boards (or be involved in their
development) but I have zero interest in being a part in selling them.
They will also be open hardware.
The code is out there and it's open source and runs on some inexpensive
hardware that is already available.
You can play with the code SITL and you don't even need any hardware!
If you want to play with the hardware it's $65 bucks for that.
It adds up for radios and things you might need for implementing it but
it's still nothing compared to whats out there now.
If you want to use it as a rocket controller only, like some of the
boards out there now you just need a small SPI Accel board and it can do
far more than those for $100 counting that AND you can reconfigure it
all you want! Because it's open source.
Yes it's somewhat disruptive technology.
and it is out there now
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [AR] Re: Flight Controller Features
From: Ken Biba <kenbiba@xxxxxx>
Date: Sun, January 10, 2016 5:00 pm
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
A few thoughts.
There are some very good and flight proven amateur rocket recovery and
telemetry solutions on the market. Small market and very hard to get market
share. Very tough business.
I have seen about 20 university level GPS guided parachute/paraglide recovery
solutions over last 10 years as part of ARLISS program. None have made
effective progress against the wind even when demonstrating effective
control. Hard problem and avionics not the tough part. Skeptical.
A simple drogue/ballute at apogee with main chute deployment at low altitude
still seems most reliable and proven recovery.
For me small size and power consumption will be important to consider at all.
K
Ken Biba
Novarum, Inc.
415-577-5496
On Jan 10, 2016, at 8:56 AM, Monroe L. King Jr. <monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Would guided parachute recovery be interesting?
Parachutes provide for a rather choppy landing
that may not be over when you have touched down.
( And the payload tends to require carefull packing that comes at
significant cost in weight.)
Yeah I prefer flying back on wings but I am interested in what others
might want.
Dragchutes should work well for energy management.
True but much more is possible today nothing wrong with that to me as
long as you get your rocket back! I don't want to see anymore lost
rockets if we can help it. The telemetry alone should improve that
dramatically.
But for the actual landing something more sophisticated needs to be used.
You require point landing and very low speed final approach.
( Rocket engines are not designed or being dropped asswards on the ground)
We've seen that an active rocket landing works.
I don't think many amateurs would be interested in something that
complex unless they had a throttable and those are few. This controller
could easily do hover and such a return but thats not what I had in mind
here.
This would be something like recovery with no chute using the grid fins
and a retro fire right near the ground say 4 small solids to stop the
decent like the Russian capsule does.
What actually spoke against the Roton solution ?
Which is what?
uwe
Each type of configuration needs a reference frame to build the model
on and each frame needs a proper mixer for attitude control so right now
I'm trying to decide what reference frames and mixers to work on first.
Since I'm deciding how we do this I might include your idea if it's
doable and cool enough :)
