Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
18 S-band Radar Altimeter
 Bobby Sommers
Elliot Rubin
Rayan Nehme
 Koushik Udayachandran design_document1.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
photo1.png
presentation1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
video
Problem:
Currently, hobbyist RC aircraft and civil drones rely on GPS and barometers for altitude measurements. While these methods are reliable and accurate, they may not tell the operator the full story. GPS is a line of sight system and does not work when the receiver is obscured by terrain or buildings. Barometers read air pressure, but will not measure the distance between an aircraft and terrain. A radar altimeter would provide low-flying drones and RC aircraft with accurate altitude measurements relative to terrain.

Solution Overview:
Our solution relies on a FMCW (frequency modulated continuous wave) S-band radar altimeter powered off of an internal battery. The radar altimeter will be mounted to the bottom of the drone and will use the 2.4GHz ISM band in its operation.

Solution Components:

Processing Unit:
The processing unit will consist of a microcontroller, barometric altimeter, and an SD card slot. The microcontroller will calculate the range to terrain based on the doppler shift from the radar and will log this information to the SD card. It will also record the altitude measured via the barometric altimeter to compare with the radar measurement. Finally, the microcontroller will generate the control signal for the FMCW waveform.

Radar Unit:
The radar unit will consist of two submodules: the transmitter and the receiver.

The transmitter performs frequency modulation using a VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) with a tune voltage generated by the microcontroller. This tune voltage is used to sweep the VCO frequency and creates an FM waveform. A PA (power amplifier) is used to increase the transmit power and is connected to the Tx patch antenna. The Rx patch array receives the reflected signal, amplifies it through a LNA (low noise amplifier), down converts it with a mixer, and provides the demodulated signal to the processing unit.

Power Unit:
The power unit consists of a shielded switching converter to provide DC supply voltage to the other units. This DC power will be regulated by a LDO (low dropout regulator) to provide low-noise power to sensitive components such as the LNA and the VCO.

Criterion for Success:
Our radar altimeter should accurately and precisely measure distance within 1m and record measurement data to a SD card for post processing. It should have a minimum range of 20 m.

Alternatives:
There are several 24GHz radar altimeters designed for use on UAVs, but they are more expensive and are not targeted to consumers. Development boards from semiconductor companies and vendors such as Adafruit and Seed also operate in the 24GHz band, but have very limited range (<10 m).

ATTITUDE DETERMINATION AND CONTROL MODULE FOR UIUC NANOSATELLITES

Shamith Achanta, Rick Eason, Srikar Nalamalapu

Featured Project

Team Members:

- Rick Eason (reason2)

- Srikar Nalamalapu (svn3)

- Shamith Achanta (shamith2)

# Problem

The Aerospace Engineering department's Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois (LASSI) develops nanosatellites for the University of Illinois. Their next-generation satellite architecture is currently in development, however the core bus does not contain an Attitude Determination and Control (ADCS) system.

In order for an ADCS system to be useful to LASSI, the system must be compliant with their modular spacecraft bus architecture.

# Solution

Design, build, and test an IlliniSat-0 spec compliant ADCS module. This requires being able to:

- Sense and process the Earth's weak magnetic field as it passes through the module.

- Sense and process the spacecraft body's <30 dps rotation rate.

- Execute control algorithms to command magnetorquer coil current drivers.

- Drive current through magnetorquer coils.

As well as being compliant to LASSI specification for:

- Mechanical design.

- Electrical power interfaces.

- Serial data interfaces.

- Material properties.

- Serial communications protocol.

# Solution Components

## Sensing

Using the Rohm BM1422AGMV 3-axis magnetometer we can accurately sense 0.042 microTesla per LSB, which gives very good overhead for sensing Earth's field. Furthermore, this sensor is designed for use in wearable electronics as a compass, so it also contains programable low-pass filters. This will reduce MCU processing load.

Using the Bosch BMI270 3-axis gyroscope we can accurately sense rotation rate at between ~16 and ~260 LSB per dps, which gives very good overhead to sense low-rate rotation of the spacecraft body. This sensor also contains a programable low-pass filter, which will help reduce MCU processing load.

Both sensors will communicate over I2C to the MCU.

## Serial Communications

The LASSI spec for this module requires the inclusion of the following serial communications processes:

- CAN-FD

- RS422

- Differential I2C

The CAN-FD interface is provided from the STM-32 MCU through a SN65HVD234-Q1 transceiver. It supports all CAN speeds and is used on all other devices on the CAN bus, providing increased reliability.

The RS422 interface is provided through GPIO from the STM-32 MCU and uses the TI THVD1451 transceiver. RS422 is a twisted-pair differential serial interface that provides high noise rejection and high data rates.

The Differential I2C is provided by a specialized transceiver from NXP, which allows I2C to be used reliably in high-noise and board-to-board situations. The device is the PCA9615.

I2C between the sensors and the MCU is provided by the GPIO on the MCU and does not require a transceiver.

## MCU

The MCU will be an STM32L552, exact variant and package is TBD due to parts availability. This MCU provides significant processing power, good GPIO, and excellent build and development tools. Firmware will be written in either C or Rust, depending on some initial testing.

We have access to debugging and flashing tools that are compatible with this MCU.

## Magnetics Coils and Constant Current Drivers

We are going to wind our own copper wire around coil mandrels to produce magnetorquers that are useful geometries for the device. A 3d printed mandrel will be designed and produced for each of the three coils. We do not believe this to be a significant risk of project failure because the geometries involved are extremely simple and the coil does not need to be extremely precise. Mounting of the coils to the board will be handled by 3d printed clips that we will design. The coils will be soldered into the board through plated through-holes.

Driving the inductors will be the MAX8560 500mA buck converter. This converter allows the MCU to toggle the activity of the individual coils separately through GPIO pins, as well as good soft-start characteristics for the large current draw of the coils.

## Board Design

This project requires significant work in the board layout phase. A 4-layer PCB is anticipated and due to LASSI compliance requirements the board outline, mounting hole placement, part keep-out zones, and a large stack-through connector (Samtec ERM/F-8) are already defined.

Unless constrained by part availability or required for other reasons, all parts will be SMD and will be selected for minimum footprint area.

# Criterion For Success

Success for our project will be broken into several parts:

- Electronics

- Firmware

- Compatibility

Compatibility success is the easiest to test. The device must be compatible with LASSI specifications for IlliniSat-0 modules. This is verifiable through mechanical measurement, board design review, and integration with other test articles.

Firmware success will be determined by meeting the following criteria:

- The capability to initialize, configure, and read accurate data from the IMU sensors. This is a test of I2C interfacing and will be tested using external test equipment in the LASSI lab. (We have approval to use and access to this equipment)

- The capability to control the output states of the magnetorquer coils. This is a test of GPIO interfacing in firmware.

- The capability to move through different control modes, including: IDLE, FAULT, DETUMBLE, SLEW, and TEST. This will be validated through debugger interfacing, as there is no visual indication system on this device to reduce power waste.

- The capability to self-test and to identify faults. This will be validated through debugger interfacing, as there is no visual indication system on this device to reduce power waste.

- The capability to communicate to other modules on the bus over CAN or RS422 using LASSI-compatible serial protocols. This will be validated through the use of external test equipment designed for IlliniSat-0 module testing.

**Note:** the development of the actual detumble and pointing algorithms that will be used in orbital flight fall outside the reasonable scope of electrical engineering as a field. We are explicitly designing this system such that an aerospace engineering team can develop control algorithms and drop them into our firmware stack for use.

Electronics success will be determined through the successful operation of the other criteria, if the board layout is faulty or a part was poorly selected, the system will not work as intended and will fail other tests. Electronics success will also be validated by measuring the current consumption of the device when operating. The device is required not to exceed 2 amps of total current draw from its dedicated power rail at 3.3 volts. This can be verified by observing the benchtop power supply used to run the device in the lab.