SpaceFish autopilot, first candidate

After checking all our software and hardware in the first autopilot with our little Cessna, we finished the first autopilot autopilot for the SpaceFish.

This new autopilot generation weights 250gr. and its dimensions are 70x70x90mm and it is suitable to be enclosed in the final design of the electronic box for testing. This new version  is more powerful, it counts with two microprocessors instead one, working in parallel. They provide an extra-security as well more processor capacity as we need more computational requirements from our attitude estimator and navigation system. Also it has new sensors, like the three axis wind-speed.

SpaceFish Autopilot

Now we want to present to you our new toy to test the autopilot in ground. It is like a stewart platform, providing us three degrees of freedom with feedback.

Three degress of freedom testing platform

Safety and parachute deployment system

Between test and test, today we want to show you how works our safety system.
In the next video you can see the analog circuit controlling the servo which locks the parachute deployment system. It is constantly checking three signals, one if the free-fall circuit triggers, another if we leave the flight footprint and the last in case of failure in one of the micro-controllers. The system also it is protected against itself, and in case of failure or loose of power, the servo triggers anyway unlocking the parachute.

And here, a system emulating the upper hatch of the SpaceFish that we showed in a previous new. The afternoon testing of the parachute deployment system was successful.

And more news about the SF1, it is suffering some modifications to take-off from a runway, we decided finally to add it a landing gear for testing here in ground. It is taking us a lot of time and resources to be on time and do the first successful flight of the SF1, but yes, we can!

Magnífico !

Autopilot testing

Here it is one video of our autopilot testings. It includes a attitude estimator, 3x accelerometers, 3x gyroscopes, 3x magnetic vectors, 3x wind-speed, 1x barometer, 1x temperature, 1x voltage supply, GPS with longitude, latitude, 3x ground-speed, and time. The RadioLink is 2.4GHz @ 19.2kbps with a sampler frequency of 50Hz.

As just we finished all the ground station software, we are just gathering all the widgets like this artificial horizon shown in the previous video. The final ground station will include a 3DGoogleEarth map, a compass, a flight plan… all kind of widgets to do easier the following of the SpaceFish from ground.

The screen that you can see at the left side is the Status Panel, where we can check all the calculations of the micro-controllers on board.

Status Panel of the Autopilot