Remote control chutes

[lmt56]

Has any one done any work in trying to remotely control parchutes in Hp rocketry?
I am working with a high school group on the SLI program.
We should be able to return this year as a second year team.
One of the things they would like to do this year is to seperate a nose cone section and recover it by remote control.
Preferably guided by GPS.
I don't think we will need to recreate the wheel on this.
If I am correct the RC guys do this sort of thing.
Just wandering if anyone has done this in HP rocketry and has it advanced to the GPS guided level?
Thanks much for any insite.

 

[Handeman]

The RC guys do something like this. Check out RCSkydiving.com
As you can see, the steerable 7 cell chutes aren't cheap.
I'm looking into building a setup for a ten pound rocket, you have to design the chute for the weight of the load so chute design and rigging will be taking a while. I intend to use RC controls because I don't have the experience or desire to do the design and building of a computer controlled steering system with GPS, I'm not an electrionic/computer/systems engineer and don't have the desire to learn everything I'd need to be able to pull that off.

There may be one or two out there that have done a GPS controlled steerable recovery system for hobby rockets, but I haven't heard of them. In fact, I haven't heard of anyone that's done a RC system yet.

Good luck. If you do build a system, post the info here. I for one will be very interested.

 

[n5wd]

...I am working with a high school group on the SLI program... One of the things they would like to do this year is to seperate a nose cone section and recover it by remote control.
Preferably guided by GPS.

Well, that's going to be a very interesting flight to watch come April! I should be there with my school's SLI team, so we'll be quite interested to see your progress!

 

[Handeman]

Just a thought if you are going to buy a ram air type chute for recovery.

Man rated chutes for beginners are about 1/2 lbs. per square foot of canopy. The expert chutes go as high as 2 lbs. per square foot. I would recommend you stay as close to the 1/2 lbs per square foot as possible.

 

[lmt56]

Well, that's going to be a very interesting flight to watch come April! I should be there with my school's SLI team, so we'll be quite interested to see your progress!

I have been in contact with some of the RC guys and it looks like recovering a nose cone by way of a remote control chute is very do able.
Not sure yet on the GPS guided part.
But it should be fun and interesting.
If we are able to keep every thing in a 3.9" airframe I have a PR Nike smoke we can use as a test bed.
Since it is single deploy and we will use CTI motors for the test flights we should be able to do several test fllights in one day.