Activités de 2018-2019

CanSat 2019

Our CanSat 2019 projects aims to demonstrate how a number of aspects common to any satellite mission can be addressed with inexpensive hardware.

Those aspects include :

• The collection of precise location and attitude data ;
• The processing of those data down to position and attitude data in an inertial referential (to demonstrate we could feed a position control system, should we have a propulsion system) ;
• The reliable establishment of a real-time processing chain, partly on-board, partly on the ground ;
• The processing of images taken by the on-board camera and their combination and possibly resampling onto larger shots, based on the position and orientation of the can when the picture was taken.

More generally, we want to demonstrate that a number of the characteristics of real-life systems can be replicated at the scale of a CanSat project, and provide a unique opportunity for us to get a real understanding of the complexity involved in an apparently simple feature such as “taking pictures of the ground”.

Mission overview

• As soon as the can senses a large enough difference in altitude (within a limited timespan), it will start acquiring all of the necessary information - such as IMU, Pressure, Temperature, Altitude, GPS, etc. The information will then be collected every 100 msec (to be confirmed by our timing tests) and the camera will take pictures approximately every 5 seconds. Sensor data (except images) will be transmitted on the RF channel, archived on the ground and processed by the RT-Processing on the fly.

• After the can’s landing we will still receive the information through the radio (it will stay in acquisition mode even after landing). GPS information should allow for easy location of the can.

• Once the can is retrieved, we will take out the SD-cards of the can (containing sensor data and image data). Would anything have been wrong during the RF transmission or the real time processing, we’ll be able to process the sensor data offline again). Images will be processed by our Image Processing system.

• Resulting image contours (and possibly images themselves) will be presented using a GIS system.

As an academic partner of Visual Paradigm, COLLEGE SAINT_PIERRE has access to the online diagramming tools (e.g. UML, Flowchart, ArchiMate, BPMN, Mindmap, etc) and scrum tools provided by Visual Paradigm.