Purpose
In our IREC competition rockets, we need flight computers to record and telemeter sensor data, control recovery, and track the rocket. To develop our team members' experience with PCB design and programming, we aim to develop our own flight computers. However, monolithic designs that satisfy all of these requirements are complicated to develop and can't easily spread work over a large team. The backplane offers a solution, in a modular architecture in which each module has a specific focus and simpler design, allowing us to spread the work over many team members and resolve issues or upgrade functionality without revising a single large and expensive circuit board.
The backplane uses an Ethernet switch to connect the modules, because Ethernet has the bandwidth to support future projects that involve high-bandwidth data such as video, and because the team's ground software is designed to communicate with nodes over Ethernet.
The backplane provides DE-9 connectors for modules to connect to components located elsewhere in the rocket, because DE-9 connectors are positively locking and support enough conductors in a single connector for most use cases.
The backplane uses an Ethernet switch to connect the modules, because Ethernet has the bandwidth to support future projects that involve high-bandwidth data such as video, and because the team's ground software is designed to communicate with nodes over Ethernet.
The backplane provides DE-9 connectors for modules to connect to components located elsewhere in the rocket, because DE-9 connectors are positively locking and support enough conductors in a single connector for most use cases.
BackplaneThe backplane uses a 5-port SwitchBlox switch to connect all of the modules, provides the unregulated main power rail, and the outgoing DE-9 connections.
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Autopilot moduleThe brain board is designed to control recovery and active control systems. It has a VoCore V2 single-board computer, which is more powerful than the Cortex M4 microcontrollers the other modules use, to give us the processing power to implement advanced filtering and control systems.
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Sensor moduleThe sensor module measures, logs and distributes sensor readings. The module has two barometric altimeters, two accelerometers, a gyroscope, and two thermometers, and sends these measurements over the Ethernet bus to be sent down by the Radio module and used by the Autopilot module.
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Radio moduleThe radio module provides GPS tracking and communicates with ground receivers using the 900MHz band.
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Power moduleThe power module regulates the 7-12V power given by the backplane to 5 and 3.3V, and logs the current and voltage per rail.
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