Thursday, July 31, 2014

Apologizing for being unable to open-source my project.

Realized to my dismay(and likely yours) that I will be unable to open source this rocket guidance project. Due to ITAR and this being classified as Defense-related I cannot export this code or hardware outside of the continental US. Link for those who wish to research more on these regulations. ITAR Regulations 121.1, Category 4, paragraph H:
(1) Flight control and guidance systems (including guidance sets) specially designed for articles enumerated in paragraph (a) of this category (MT for those articles enumerated in paragraphs (a)(1) and (a)(2) of this category);
Note to paragraph (h)(1): A guidance set integrates the process of measuring and computing a vehicle's position and velocity (i.e., navigation) with that of computing and sending commands to the vehicle's flight control systems to correct the trajectory.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Finally got rid of the cardboard structure! (size of prints is still wrong :[)

At long last, the horrible cardboard vanishes(except the fins). With the print that was completed today the tolerances came closer than ever before to being perfect but they still are wrong (D:). I had to take an exacto knife and shave the notches slightly wider but for some reason one of the plates was not circular but rather an oval which was nearly imperceptible except when they are stacked on one another(:/).

Femtoduino IMUduino is here!

Thanks to Alex Albino of Femtoduino for sending me this IMUduino to use on my rocket! He had tweeted out that he needed testers of unreleased boards and I stepped up because hey, hardware testing is awesome! Got sent this board (functionally equivalent to a Leonardo with an IMU and BLE!) and am currently working on integrating it as the controller for the guided rocket. Many thanks Alex! [If you wish to purchase one of these yourself go here]
Its so tiny~!

3D printing plates

Started printing plates to replace the crappy cardboard demo model. First time(black plastic) I had the slots for the servos too small; fixed it and am now printing it again(red plastic)
The initial print had issues with the quality of filament bead as is seen in the partially completed picture
printed revised prototype












   

Friday, July 25, 2014

Rocket Guidance/ active stabilization system proof of concept is up and running!

Nearly 2 months after I actually started actually working on the system I finally got the proof of concept down. It uses the cheap and very common MPU6050 6-DOF IMU to read angles and an Arduino UNO to translate the angular output into servo movement. Thank you to this tutorial for helping me understand the implementation of the IMU.
IMU detail