MIT Rocket Team Pyxida Flight Computer
Age: 18-20
Inspiration: My love and curiosity of powered flight
Purpose: Full flight computer for guidance and control of a 10ft tall 80,000ft ceiling rocket
Significance: Integrated an immense number of sensitive devices onto one board. Used a reflow oven to bake the boards.
This project was created for MIT Rocket Team as a way to navigate and control rockets ranging from team members' L1 hobby rockets to the team's 10ft tall, competition rocket. This year's competition rocket is an expo rocket expected to reach apogee at 80,000ft. In previous years, early iterations of Pyxida (pictured in purple) were used to guide a 10 ft rocket to 10,000ft before releasing a small payload and executing a controlled descent.
Pyxida was designed over multiple iterations. Initially the flight computer sat atop a Beagle Bone Black processor, but in further revisions, support for the Beagle Bone Black was relinquished. Later revisions of the board were built entirely around a Teensy 3.2 architecture. The Teensy 3.2 is an open source microcontroller platform with a powerful 32-bit 96MHz processor. This microcontroller platform was chosen as a basis for this project because of its computing power, flexibility, and community support. The current revision of Pyxida builds upon the success of previous revisions. It upgrades the microcontroller to a more powerful 32-bit 120MHz processor, replaces the large XBEE Radio with an onboard 868MHz radio, and adds an expansion bay for easy prototyping of new features.
The current revision of Pyxida contains a 9DOF IMU, 3-axis 200g accelerometer, barometer, GPS, 868MHz radio, 64KB flash memory, 4 built in pyro channels with continuity testing, and an expansion bay for easy prototyping and programming. The board was designed and continues to be maintained by me with support from MIT Rocket Team. Previous revisions of Pyxida were assembled completely in house using a heavily modified toaster as a reflow oven. The current revision was assembled using a commercial fabricator due to complexity concerns. The board continues to be updated as changes to the rocket design or changes in device technology dictate.
Inspiration: My love and curiosity of powered flight
Purpose: Full flight computer for guidance and control of a 10ft tall 80,000ft ceiling rocket
Significance: Integrated an immense number of sensitive devices onto one board. Used a reflow oven to bake the boards.
This project was created for MIT Rocket Team as a way to navigate and control rockets ranging from team members' L1 hobby rockets to the team's 10ft tall, competition rocket. This year's competition rocket is an expo rocket expected to reach apogee at 80,000ft. In previous years, early iterations of Pyxida (pictured in purple) were used to guide a 10 ft rocket to 10,000ft before releasing a small payload and executing a controlled descent.
Pyxida was designed over multiple iterations. Initially the flight computer sat atop a Beagle Bone Black processor, but in further revisions, support for the Beagle Bone Black was relinquished. Later revisions of the board were built entirely around a Teensy 3.2 architecture. The Teensy 3.2 is an open source microcontroller platform with a powerful 32-bit 96MHz processor. This microcontroller platform was chosen as a basis for this project because of its computing power, flexibility, and community support. The current revision of Pyxida builds upon the success of previous revisions. It upgrades the microcontroller to a more powerful 32-bit 120MHz processor, replaces the large XBEE Radio with an onboard 868MHz radio, and adds an expansion bay for easy prototyping of new features.
The current revision of Pyxida contains a 9DOF IMU, 3-axis 200g accelerometer, barometer, GPS, 868MHz radio, 64KB flash memory, 4 built in pyro channels with continuity testing, and an expansion bay for easy prototyping and programming. The board was designed and continues to be maintained by me with support from MIT Rocket Team. Previous revisions of Pyxida were assembled completely in house using a heavily modified toaster as a reflow oven. The current revision was assembled using a commercial fabricator due to complexity concerns. The board continues to be updated as changes to the rocket design or changes in device technology dictate.