draft blog post
Andrew Barton
Also, please upload relevant photos to this google group. I'd like to
show the AUSROC valve if you have a pic.
Thanks
AB
++ BLOG POST FOR GLXP SITE ++
Valve Controllers, Data Compression and Altimeters
Our open source partner Lunar Numbat is dedicated to developing low-
cost solutions for mission-critical systems in our GLXP mission. Here
are three specific projects they are currently investigating:
Valve Controller
A key component in a lunar lander is the valve that controls the
throttle setting of the engine used for the descent to the lunar
surface. Lunar Numbat has started developing a design for an off the
shelf Arduino board to communicate with both devices relative to the
valve control.
Lunar Numbat plans to test its valve controller design on AUSROC 2.5,
an advanced sounding rocket currently being developed by the
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI).
<insert picture of A2.5 valve >
The Arduino board will run embedded C++ software and use a modular
event driven protocol called Aiko. Aiko embodies the embedded
controller and device side of a modular framework and generic event-
driven communications protocol. There will also be a host-side design
and implementation of that protocol. The valve controller will
interface with the rest of the control system via a CAN bus.
Video Compression
Lunar Numbat is working on an idea to use JPEG2000 for rapid on-the-
fly video compression. JPEG2000 offers certain advantages compared to
other data formats in that it makes it possible to compress the data
stream by dropping layers. Lunar Numbat envisions an approach based on
concurrent data prioritization, optimized be a 'task based' approach.
Already Lunar Numbat has found in experiments have shown that a 3MB
image can have its sized reduced by a factor of four in just half a
second. In the near future LN will upload an example of video
compression to the internet.
Radar altimeter
The Chandryaan-1 Moon Impact Probe (MIP) inspired Lunar Numbat to look
into developing a simple radar altimeter based on commercial
technologies. The MIP featured a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave
radar altimeter capable of measuring the altitudes up to about 5km
above the lunar surface.
Lunar Numbat aims to use software defined radio technology to
implement its solution and hopes to test the altimeter on a cheap
flying vehicle such as a balloon or remote control aircraft.
About Lunar Numbat
Lunar Numbat is a distributed organization based in spread across
Australa and New Zealand, which was created to develop open source
hardware and software solutions for the White Label Space GLXP team. A
number of Lunar Numbat members are also members of the Melbourne
HackerSpace, another open source group, which allows Lunar Numbat to
build upon experience from more general hardware and software for non-
space applications.
Jonathan Oxer
> Guys, can you please check this draft blog post?
It looks good to me, and summarises the main points very well. Nicely
written.
One thing that could be mentioned (although probably in a separate post)
is some of the general avionics work currently being done in the form of
ARTEMIS. There's a post about it here:
http://www.practicalarduino.com/news/id/261
Because it's not directly related to a specific task required by WLS it
probably belongs in a separate post though. It falls more into the
category of "interesting demonstration of capabilities, but not core to
our mission". Yet.
> Also, please upload relevant photos to this google group. I'd like to
> show the AUSROC valve if you have a pic.
I'm pretty sure Marco has pics already (I recall seeing some posted a
couple of months ago) and has the valve assembly, so he can probably
provide some.
Regards,
--
Jonathan Oxer
Ph +61 4 3851 6600
Practical Arduino: www.practicalarduino.com
Marco Ostini
2009/7/14 Andrew Barton <andy...@hotmail.com>:
> Guys, can you please check this draft blog post?
Looks great, thank you.
> Also, please upload relevant photos to this google group. I'd like to
> show the AUSROC valve if you have a pic.
I've uploaded the pic you've asked for. You'll find it at:
http://groups.google.com/group/lunar-numbat/web/A2.5_throttle_Parts.png
The image quality is a bit grainy. Let me know if you'd like a better
quality image.
Cheers,
Marco