Helicopter Launching Platform Test

Thanks to the Automatics department from the UPC we could test the launching platform mounting on an helicopter and its effect on the flight performance.

The image on the left side shows how was the first design of the cansat lauching platform.

The cansat is mounted inside a circular cage without front column, the helicopter takes off and pulls up de cage, when at altitude the helicopter pitches down and the cansat falls.

Due to the wind it was imposible to stabilize the helicopter once the cage was airborne and a second design of cansat was tested.

This second design consists on a tube mounted between the helicopter skids and paralel to the longitudinal axis. We tested the helicopter performance in this way and the helicopter performance was only affected by the payload weight.

New electronic system

Since we won the 3rd award in "All you can fly" competition, which was held in Madrid in April 2010, we started thinking about how to improve the electronic system in order to reduce its dimensions and to increase its reliability. One of the failures we had was the lack of communication between our little satellite and us during the fall that made us lose it for some hours. Due to this, one of the ideas that came up to our minds for a future design was to implement a complete telemetry system inside our cansat. In addition, in order to make all the electronic assemble smaller we have attempted to put all the devices together in a printed circuit board.

Our current electronic system is formed by:

• Mbed prototyping platform


• GPS receiver


• Electronic compass


• 3 axes accelerometer


• 2 axes gyroscope


• Barometric and temperature sensor


• IR sensor


• Xbee wifi modulus

During the test stage we worked on a breadboard to ensure all the devices worked properly together. Meanwhile, we designed the printed circuit board using EAGLE software with the help of Daniel Pérez Robles from the Electronic Department of Terrassa's UPC campus which allowed us to print it with its PCB milling machine. Here are some pictures of the whole process

After that, we solded the SMD components and the other sensors. This is the actual look of the electronic system.

On the other hand, we are working to enable XP-7A DEST to communicate with the ground station in order to do a real-time tracking. We are going to use XBee wifi modulus with our own communication protocols and we will test the whole system in two weeks. These are some pictures of the communication devices.