I couldn't help maself.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Welcome to 2014!!
I tried to employ a bit programming fun and entitle this entry "Welcome to 2013++" but the increment operator is apparently not blogger-friendly so there it is in quotes.
I want to provide a quick launch update as things have been/are getting kinda weird hence the sparse blogging on my part:
I want to provide a quick launch update as things have been/are getting kinda weird hence the sparse blogging on my part:
- December Plaster City was blown out on Saturday for the first time in a year.
- After a decade of flying at Plaster City we lost our FAA waiver for that chunk of land on January 1 due to reevaluation of the airspace. The club is working with the FAA to identify a new site but, until that time, it's model rockets only at least for Jan/Feb so I'm planning to attend Lucerne only in the interim.
- I'm hoping to attend Lucerne on 1/11 but a post-work conflict might prevent that.
- Grrrrr...
- So February in Lucerne then?
Thanks again to my loyal readership and cheers to an amazing 2014!
Leveraging RC electronics for active vertical stabilization
I just found this on Rocketry Forum and this budding rocket scientist, Alyssa Stenberg, has become my new heroine!
At some point in the last decade I'm certain I read that active guidance was disallowed for hobby/high-power rocketry. I cannot find that/those rule(s) now, at least for Tripoli, so perhaps the prohibition has been lifted? I just skimmed my Tripoli rules from 2001 and could only find in the Prohibited Activities section: "The use of a high power rocket or high power rocket motor as a weapon against a target."
In any event I've never understood why the rule [I thought I read] seemed to categorically disallow active guidance. I realize such steering could be used by malefactors for bad things but Alyssa's 2D active guidance is clearly intended to improve the safety of the flight. I hope her work and excellent presentation open the door to additional research to actively maintain flight perpendicular to Earth. Bonus: This Guardian controller from Eagle Tree Systems is only $75. One needs to buy a slew of other hardware and electronics to enable such a system but that seems cheap for such a controller.
After watching Alyssa's presentation several things occurred to me:
At some point in the last decade I'm certain I read that active guidance was disallowed for hobby/high-power rocketry. I cannot find that/those rule(s) now, at least for Tripoli, so perhaps the prohibition has been lifted? I just skimmed my Tripoli rules from 2001 and could only find in the Prohibited Activities section: "The use of a high power rocket or high power rocket motor as a weapon against a target."
In any event I've never understood why the rule [I thought I read] seemed to categorically disallow active guidance. I realize such steering could be used by malefactors for bad things but Alyssa's 2D active guidance is clearly intended to improve the safety of the flight. I hope her work and excellent presentation open the door to additional research to actively maintain flight perpendicular to Earth. Bonus: This Guardian controller from Eagle Tree Systems is only $75. One needs to buy a slew of other hardware and electronics to enable such a system but that seems cheap for such a controller.
After watching Alyssa's presentation several things occurred to me:
- When set to 3D mode and using one servo per fin one could also actively counter roll in addition to pitch and yaw.
- It might prove worthwhile to enable some sort of inhibition system to prevent post-apogee servo thrash unless...
- Leaving it active could reduce drift by actively steering the rocket against the wind under parachute. I think one might need to invert the servo responses post-apogee, however, depending on the fin/gimbal/recovery configuration.
Rawkit syence is good eats!
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