I thought I'd give a status update on some of the advanced features that are in the pipeline:
Data logging: There will soon be two types of logged data:
- 10 Hz flight data that is recorded by the tracker and available for download after recovery
- Data recorded by the phone as it comes in, generally 1 Hz
10 Hz data logging locally on the tracker has been flight tested. Transmitting the recorded data back to the phone is mostly done.
Phone-recorded data has been getting stored in our development testing versions since August. Getting the data into files so that it can be transferred off of the phone by USB or email is still in work, but it's getting closer.
Handling of files recorded by the tracker and by the phone itself so they can be transferred over USB or emailed is in work.
Over the horizon relay (lost rocket): The first partially-functional tests of the lost rocket functionality were at BALLS 2017. Starting in August 2018 we have been doing flight tests with it in development versions of the phone app. There are a couple of minor kinks to work out on the interface between the phone and ground station (GS)/tracker, but the communication links from lost rocket to flying rocket to GS to the other GS are all working. I'm looking forward to this feature making it out into the wild.
Public telemetry: Development phone app versions that provide access to other rocket's telemetry are in test.
Multi-stage tracking: A version of multi-tracking has been available to users since June, with a iOS selection wheel used for picking which tracker the GS will listen to. A new improvement is that we are tweaking the channel frequency assignment strategy so that one GS will be able to listen to, and record, all the packets from 2 trackers no matter which one is displayed live. This will enable one GS to do double-duty for recording and recovering 2 stages. Alternatively, if a user does have 2 ground stations, he or she can pair one for live data with one stage and the other with the other stage, while data from each stage is being recorded to both ground stations for redundancy.
New advanced feature, extra low power consumption for lost rockets. After a tracker detects that it has been launched, if if loses contact with its ground station due to terrain in the way, such as after landing, it goes into a lost rocket mode. In lost rocket mode the tracker transmits on both the lost rocket channel (so other rockets will relay its data) and on its original channel that its ground station is listening to. I'm currently working on reducing the average power used in lost-rocket mode to extend the time available for recovery. I should be able to at least double the current lifetime for a given battery size while in lost rocket mode, and a factor of 10x may be possible. if it's double time, then a standard small 400 mAhr battery should be able to last for more than 10 hours.