A versatile flight computer based around (currently) the RP2040 microprocessor. The unpopulated pin header is meant to host an Adafruit KB2040 as a processor daughterboard, to reduce board complexity.
This design is licensed under the CERN-OHL-S v2 or any later version. This is to encourage contributions and collaboration on this project from anyone interested in the project. Contributions are welcome!
This design should be capable of using input voltages from 3v → 17v on the battery input to allow for a wide range of batteries to be used. It is designed to control and independently fire up to 3 individual high power in-flight events (eg. ejection charges).
The sensor package includes a Bosch BNO055 motion co-processor for acceleration, magnetic heading, and 3d orientation. It also includes a Bosch BME280 sensor for pressure (along with altitude), temperature, and humidity measurements. These sensor measurements can be used for flight control, and can also be logged to a MicroSD card mounted on the board for ease of data recovery.
Additionally, the major feature of this board is the ability to be expanded by connecting via an I2C (and hopefully in the future CAN Bus) connection to other boards and sensors with the same connectors. These expansion boards could provide additional capabilities while being modular for quickly swapping and replacing parts.
Such capabilities could include:
- GPS and other location packages
- Radio transmitters for rangefinding, and telemetry
- Additional motion sensors in other parts of the rocket
- Controlling other electronic devices such as servos, cameras, etc.
This would allow for both expansion, and could allow for cheap sensors to be placed in otherwise dangerous places on a rocket, where a more expensive board would make no sense.
All programmable components of this board were selected to be compatible with Rust-based microcontroller frameworks like Embassy, for ease of programming and future extension of software capabilities.
