R2Home - Guided Parachute Recovery System - For rocketry and weather balloon

[Yohan H]

Hello there,

I'm new here, my name is Yohan H, I'm french, and almost 17 years old. I'm working on few space related projects, including one that may interest you. I'm working on a guided parachute recovery system, which can be used as well with a weather balloon than on a model rocket.

Here are two videos of the current prototype in action :





And few pictures of the last prototype :






I'm doing everything by myself, including the sewing of the parachute canopy

I'm only 16 years old and I'm not likely to be able to turn it into a product in a short period of time. However I can make sure to continue the development of this project in open source so that each of you can benefit from it.

I've been doing this for almost a year now, and I now need financial help to continue. If you think the project might interest you, and you want to see it move forward, I just started a gofundme (which will also give you more info about the project) here : (It is intentionally aimed at a public that knows nothing about rocketry) https://gf.me/u/y6dnv9, feel free to share it if you know someone who might be interested!

Fell also free to ask me anything you want to know about it!

Yohan H

 

[Yohan H]

Hi there!

+9 months after here is a quick update :

R2Home is now fully operational on the mechanical part, and the electronic part is now only waiting for a more developed software to be fully autonomous.

Here is a picture of the system :



It still fits in a 3" coupler tube!

Here is also a video I just published, talking in details (in english!) about the different steps the project has gone through : R2Home - From the idea to the system

The latests CAD files, and the first version of the code can be found on the github page of the project as well as on its hackaday.io page :

https://github.com/YohanHadji/R2Homehttps://hackaday.io/project/176621-r2home
Yohan

 

[Yohan H]

Hey there!

+3 months after here is a quick update:

R2Home is now fully operational on the mechanical part, and the electronic part is now only waiting for a more developed software to be fully autonomous.

R2Home is now perfectly working all on its own!

Here is a picture from a test flight I did earlier this month:



The small white dot you can see at the beginning of "the train" is the system falling under its drogchute until the desired deployment altitude is reached. Then, R2Home is deploying the wing, steering it in a straight-ish line and finally as soon as the landing point is reached, turning around.

If you look at this picture, the wind is coming from the left side of the valley. You can see that R2Home's trajectory is curved, the autopilot can still be improved a little bit )

And here is the video of a second test flight I did the same day:

Next up, flying R2Home on a model rocket!

But that's not going to be really really soon because I first want to get my L1 (junior) on a 3" generic rocket I just finished building with the help of my uni's rocket team. It will fly up to ~500m with R2Home's avionics (but with a generic parachute and motor-charge deployment) on a H123-W.



Also, if you want a little bit more details about the system, I just updated more details on its hackaday page: https://hackaday.io/project/176621-r2home

I'll keep you updated as soon as there is more progress!

 

[OverTheTop]

Nice work!

 

[rocket_troy]

Looking good! Hats off!

 

[tsmith1315]

Fantastic!

 

[Blast it Tom!]

This is really interesting for us small-field guys! What sort of headwind can it deal with to get back "home"?

 

[Cape Byron]

That's really impressive.

 

[MJW]

Can you program it to exclude the flight line from it's return path? This is really cool, but I'd hate to drop a HPR into an RV or car...

 

[rocket_troy]

16yo and French and you communicate in English like it's your mother tongue and you develop, build and field test this - I'm seriously gobsmacked. I'm also currently developing a similar recovery device (but powered) and I know how much work is involved.

TP

 

[Yohan H]

Thanks for your kind messages!

Can you program it to come exclude the flight line from it's return path?

Not already, but everything is possible as soon as the autopilot is great enough! Basically the next step for the autopilot is to add waypoints. And with waypoints you can do whatever you want.

What sort of headwind can it deal with to get back "home"?

It all depends on the wing loading, the flight trajectory is only limited by the relationship between wind speed, and wing forward speed. And the wing forward speed is a direct function of the wing loading.

On the video you saw, R2Home is flying upwind to go home. With a 0.7kg payload on the video, the forward speed of the wing is about 5m/s (18kmph and 12mph). This payload weight is the minimum weight needed to get the autopilot working great. You could theoretically fly up to 2.5kg of payload with this version of R2Home. And with 2.5kg of payload, R2Home will fly much faster (about two times faster).

The glide ratio flying in stationary air is about 4-5. Meaning that from 100m, the wing can fly on about 400-500m, if there is no wind. If the wind speed = wing forward speed, then in the direction of the wind the wing can theoretically only fly stationary on the xy plan. Which is already better than drifting with the wind.

I hope my explanations are clear

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Very clear, and I am an idiot! I should well enough have known that the forward glide speed & glide slope of a wing is set up by it's shape and loading, and may well exceed the wnd speed.

I was about your age 50 years ago and thought it was pretty cool that I could design a rocket using "moments and centroids" (a conservative way to design as it calculates the rocket's center of pressure as the centroid of the lateral area, the "cardboard cutout" method). You are 'way ahead of me at your age, good on you!

 

[rocket_troy]

if there is no wind. If the wind speed = wing forward speed, then in the direction of the wind the wing can theoretically only fly stationary on the xy plan. Which is already better than drifting with the wind

Absolutely! Where we fly, my objectives for any similar device would be:

Reduce the downwind drift distance by any amount - WIN
Stop the descending rocket from wandering/landing into a (potentially hostile) neighbouring property - THE BIG WIN!
Glide it back to a nominated area for convenient retrieval - Very Nice Bonus

TP

 

[Yohan H]

Hey there,

I've been working on this project for two years and a half now, I've learned so many things. How to prepare for a test flight, how to analyse a failure, how to keep the motivation on the long term.

I've learned that it rarely works at all on the first try even if you spent months and months testing everything again and again.

But this time, it did: (switch to full screen if you want to see something)


Not a perfect flight, it's only the first. You can't see everything in this video, I'll upload more footage when I have time.

The beginning was autopilot but it quickly suffered from too high gain which pushed it to go in "safe recovery" mode (command neutral, flying in a big circle), then I took over the control with my radio controller to bring it closer and reactivate the autopilot again.

Now that I know what works and what doesn't, I'm hopefully gonna be able to simplify the system as much as possible, to make it possible for any of you to build it, use it, and even improve it if you want

 

[Yohan H]

Here is a second video with a ground and inside view of parafoil deployment:

 

[Blast it Tom!]

I like how you can hear the servo moving during the decent! Nice work!

 

[chrocket]

That is awsome

 

[dhbarr]

Beautiful work.

 

[shockie]

Excellent work!

 

[Hobie1dog]

When are you going to start selling them?

 

[Yohan H]

When are you going to start selling them?

My primary goal right now is to make it work as well as possible and to make sure it's as simple as possible. When I'll have something that I consider good enough and safe I might be able to have kits manufactured for the rocketry community coming directly with an appropriate wing or not.

In the meantime you are free to build your own R2Home version based on all the ressources I left open on the internet, this project was supported financially by the community, and I want to try to give back as much value as possible:

If you're not sure how to start the project this instructable is a good place to start: https://www.instructables.com/R2Home-GPS-Guided-Recovery-System/

If you are looking for a list of the technical details, the "details" part of this hackaday.io page is for you: https://hackaday.io/project/176621-r2home

If you want to take a look at the CAD or COD the GitHub repository is published here: https://github.com/YohanHadji/R2Home

Writing good ressources is a long a hard task that I try to do as professionally as possible, but I'm always looking for feedbacks if you feel like something important is missing or is wrong!

Here are also two super nice pictures by Ramon Huser of this Sunday's flight, you can maybe see a little bit more than in the videos what the setup is:




I also understand that a lot of rocketers interested in having such a system might not be ready to dive into the project of completely building their own system, which is exactly why I'm currently thinking about the commercial solutions that I could try to offer.

 

[BigMacDaddy]

Definitely one of the cooler projects I have read about.

If you do not mind me asking -- what were some of the things that you did at a young age to learn about electronics, coding, etc... I have a 9-year-old who is into electronics and coding. We have been building sample Arduino-based electronics projects and he has (on his own) been using online tools to simulate electronic circuits (TinkerCad). I want to encourage him to get into some more significant projects like this.

 

[waltr]

For a 9 year old, robotics should be a lot of fun.
This could involve learning to wire and control motors, servos and read sensors.
The R2Home project is basically a robot.

 

[Yohan H]

Definitely one of the cooler projects I have read about.

If you do not mind me asking -- what were some of the things that you did at a young age to learn about electronics, coding, etc... I have a 9-year-old who is into electronics and coding. We have been building sample Arduino-based electronics projects and he has (on his own) been using online tools to simulate electronic circuits (TinkerCad). I want to encourage him to get into some more significant projects like this.

Thanks! This is a very interesting question. As far as I can remember my first technical experience goes back to drilling holes in my dad's workshop wood table while he wasn't watching me. This might sound like a joke but it really isn't, and what I remember from this is that I was free to explore.

Both of my parents did an engineering degree, but I was as free to do music or art as building a wood house in the garden, and in fact, I had to do music more than any engineering related stuff.

I would say that doing as different things as possible (not as many) is key. Today I like designing hardware as well as software and I also like working with my hands on wood as well as printing a complex part on my 3D printer.

I can't really tell where I was at 9, and being into coding at this age looks already very promising. I remember my dad bringing back broken stuff from work and I was experimenting with what I could build with that.

I've always been fascinated by flying stuff and can't really say how far it's coming from, but building my first RC plane (easy star) was also a fantastic experience (and part of the fun was also maybe that I was learning to fly it at the same time as my dad)

I would say try to see what your kid is dreaming about and explore in this direction, can't wait to see what he'll create in 8 years : )

 

[BigMacDaddy]

Thanks! This is a very interesting question. As far as I can remember my first technical experience goes back to drilling holes in my dad's workshop wood table while he wasn't watching me. This might sound like a joke but it really isn't, and what I remember from this is that I was free to explore.

Both of my parents did an engineering degree, but I was as free to do music or art as building a wood house in the garden, and in fact, I had to do music more than any engineering related stuff.

I would say that doing as different things as possible (not as many) is key. Today I like designing hardware as well as software and I also like working with my hands on wood as well as printing a complex part on my 3D printer.

I can't really tell where I was at 9, and being into coding at this age looks already very promising. I remember my dad bringing back broken stuff from work and I was experimenting with what I could build with that.

I've always been fascinated by flying stuff and can't really say how far it's coming from, but building my first RC plane (easy star) was also a fantastic experience (and part of the fun was also maybe that I was learning to fly it at the same time as my dad)

I would say try to see what your kid is dreaming about and explore in this direction, can't wait to see what he'll create in 8 years : )

Thanks for the reply -- we have a 3D printed and a CNC and he has designed 3D objects as well... he really wants to get a snake so I am hoping we can make some smart devices for the snake cage.

I am also going to show him your project!!!

 

[samtc]

Awesome work Yohan. Thanks for sharing your work.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

This is fantastic. So where do you get those para-wings?

Edit, never mind, I went to your links!

Edited again, this seems like a mid-power (in the US, Level 1 certification) at least. Am I correct?

 

[Yohan H]

Edited again, this seems like a mid-power (in the US, Level 1 certification) at least. Am I correct?

It is, it was launched at a Tripoli launch organized by the ARGOS club in Cernier, Switzerland. The rocket is 3" in diameter, and about 1.9kg. The motor was an H-148-R, this is a personal rocket that I built during a one-week workshop with the EPFL rocket team.

It could have been a successful L1 certification flight if I wasn't still 17 for two weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong but Tripoli requires you to pass your Junior L1 with a senior Tripoli member. And while we have L2 members on the team, all the people that helped me build this rocket in September were student Tripoli members and not seniors.

So we decided with the more qualified member of the team in charge of the workshop (L2) to launch the rocket under his responsibility. This member was here during all the construction phases to check my work.

We might have another launch in May in Switzerland, where I'll be 18, and thus able to get my L1

 

[Yohan H]

Hey there,

So this update is not exactly about rocketry but I think you might be interested anyway because it has good consequences for the development of the project in general.

We just did the first "high altitude" test flight, and it was a success. R2Home flew up to 3500m (11400ft) under a weather balloon launched with the help of MeteoSwiss and then came back to the launch site autonomously with a landing within 5 meters from the launch point.

As you will see at the end of the video it was pretty gusty on ground, but R2Home managed to keep fighting the wind and we technically still had some margin because this new wing is coming with the ability to change in flight the angle of attack to accelerate (while loosing glide ratio) and we were on the slowest speed trim.



So, why am I saying that this is interesting for rocketry, well because it seems to me that most people interested to fly such a system will fly it around these altitudes, and in most cases with much less drift than the balloon experienced on ascent. In other words this is a perfect example of the come-back capability of the system.

The foam shell you can see in the video is the box designed to fly R2Home with weather balloons, don't worry about it for the rocket integration, the old good 3" coupler tube design is still compatible with the current R2Home version.

I'll spend the next months working on perfecting the system but I'm confident you can already start dreaming about using it on your next-next build. I'll do an update by the end of the summer to see if we can start finding first beta testers.

Yohan

 

[bibbster]

Amazing! Impressive! Well done!