University Project

This is quite a random and vague topic but any help would be seriously appreciated.

I'm a student studying electronic engineering with space science and our group business and design project is to build a model rocket and design a telemetry system or at least some sort of payload for it. But as it's a uni project they won’t just let us have fun and we have to have business slant so we need to analyse the demands in the market.

The sort of things we'd like to know is what sort of devises people use in their rockets what specialist tracing devises they'd use and what would people like to put on their rockets but don’t because it's too expensive/unavailable.

I would be really grateful for any info you think might be useful to us!

Thanks
Rachel

the simple answer is altimeters and GPS or Radio Beacon tracking devices.

Originally posted by rdbones
the simple answer is altimeters and GPS or Radio Beacon tracking devices.

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Ditto.

Too expensive for me ...

GPS Tracking
Radio Tracking
Wireless Control Systems (For airstarts, backup ejection, etc.)
In Flight High Quality Video / Pictures
Non-Pyrotechnic Ejection Systems (Carbon Dioxide, etc.)

Also a lot of folks fly cameras and video transmitters of various kinds.



Al

I think a great business plan for you here is to create a low cost GPS tracking device.
Another idea that really could use attention is alternative ejection devices in Rocketry. There have been some good ideas here that incorporate alternatives to black powder ejection. One of them is the Rouse-Tech CD3. This area could definitely gain from support in electronics engineering at university level. There is a growing market with the BATF looming.

How about a telemetry transmitter for the Perfectflite MAWD? It has serial output, but as far as I know there is no commercially available product to transmit the data that can be sent out that serial port.

www.perfectflite.com

https://bigredbee.com/

Pretty much the best rocket tracking equipment you can get for the money


I'd like to hear more about your project if you don't mind sharing. I proposed some rocketry projects to my university's SpaceGrant foundation and they put me on hold.
What's the objective?

Something that can shift some weight in the rocket so it auto-matically tries to steer itself to the pad.

Hi,

There are loads of good altimeters out there, and I know of at least two UK students wh've done them as electronics projects. I think altimeters have been done to death as projects.

Something that I'd buy would be a cheap programmable camera. Something that can detect launch and start to run after a few seconds and take pictures at set times. If all these times were programmable , say over USB or RS232, then it could be a very flexible device. Useful for filming flight events like staging and deployment as well as aerial photos.

Of course it'll have to survive a good few g, be easily installed in small tubes, and weigh almost nothing!

How about that as a project?

Devloping an earlier idea, I'd love it if my rockets flew back to me. The US military have been looking at using GPS to control steerable parachutes for dropping cargo. What about something similar for a high power rocket?

It detects launch, and stores the GPS coordinates for the location. After deployment it uses servos and a model of the control laws for the parachute to steer it back to the launch point. It would save a lot of walking.

Originally posted by Phil
Devloping an earlier idea, I'd love it if my rockets flew back to me. The US military have been looking at using GPS to control steerable parachutes for dropping cargo. What about something similar for a high power rocket?

It detects launch, and stores the GPS coordinates for the location. After deployment it uses servos and a model of the control laws for the parachute to steer it back to the launch point. It would save a lot of walking.

Click to expand...

Could probably have mini servos connected to the shroud lines and the servos tug at the lines to change the rockets direction, A small sky-diving parachute might work if ur using an HPR bird.

Originally posted by Phil
The US military have been looking at using GPS to control steerable parachutes for dropping cargo. What about something similar for a high power rocket?

Click to expand...

I remember seeing something simular on the CMASS email list. Someone already has done it......

Rachel, Our club, AeroPac runs a program called ARLISS
https://www.arliss.org/ Is this something your interested in?

Tony