Ethernet Bridge for Communicating with a Rocket

Feb 03, 2006 8 Replies
Z

I've been thinking lately about the problem of transmitting data from a high powered rocket to a ground station. Many people put cameras, GPS recievers, altimeters, and other telemetry devices on their rockets and in some applications it is useful to view this data in realtime. A solution that occured to me recently was to use a wireless ethernet bridge that operates in the 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz range (as made by AvaLAN for example

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Note that these devices are different than your run of the mill 802.11 wireless access points and have ranges up to 40 miles! With a small linux based computer onboard the rocket
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various devices could be connected to the ethernet bridge.



My simple question is whether this though has occured to any of you and if so, how did the final product work out and what was its performance like? Thanks!


-Zach Bailey MIT Rocket Team



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C

These data radios work well for rocket borne telmetry.

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I just don't like all the other overhead with ethernet.

small light weight Pic based devices then work easier with the com based devices.

a single board PC with those ethernet bridge would work well.

It just seems like extra weight to me, but does have the advantage of not needing custom embedded like development tools or knowledge.

CD

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P

We'll be flying one at NYPOWER this year.

Doug Pratt

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R

I use wireless ethernet for configuring my Windows 98 computer.

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Flown 5 or 6 times. First flown 3-4 years ago. I need to update the page as it has a better power supply that allows a ground based umbilical power. Also replaced the FM Tx with a FRS radio. Added the ethernet and use VNC to talk to the computer on the ground but have had flights with full reception. Also added the GPS.

I hope to revamp the software and fly it again at LDRS this year in a two stage rocket. Boosted by 3 x M1900BB staging to a 98mm 10,000 motor probably BB.

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J
433mHz serial modems will do it.

Here is one I like...

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C

only 1km range - maybe not enough?

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J

Thats with the dinky stub antennas built in. That 1km range is horizontal along the ground, going up will get you more. Add a yagi antenna on the ground and 2-3km should be easy.

But its a guess until someone tests one.

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