The Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) being designed for the rocket consists of 3 single axis MEMS rate gyros, 2 dual axis accelerometers, 2 dual axis magnetic sensors and a GPS unit. The magnetometer and the GPS provide absolute heading and position reference to minimize accumulated error in the inertial measurements. The IMU has been designed together with a CAN bus expansion module on a PC104 form factor. The base board has two smaller boards connecting at right angles to provide inertial sensing in all 3 axis. This board will be mounted on top of a PC104 XScale based single board computer(SBC) interfacing via two high speed UARTs (one for CAN bus, one for IMU). The board design has been completed and all components have been source courtesy of RS Components.
The eCos real-time operating system has been ported to run on the Arcom Vulcan board sponsored to the project by RS Components. eCos is a deeply embedded operating system designed for applications requiring fast deterministic response time.
Currently a Kalman Filter implementation is being to developed to run on the SBC along with a roll control algorithm to drive the discontinuous reaction jets.
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