SpaceDrone: Bringing Spacecraft Flight Software Closer to Earth

2014-12-18

Nathaniel Parsons

David Edell

Bill Van Besien

Skye Basir

Mark Reid

Christopher Krupiarz

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SpaceDrone: Project Goals

Demonstrate the versatility of APL’s CORE space flight software architecture via deployment on a commercial off-the-shelf UAV platform

Enable a low-cost, extensible platform for maturing breakthrough space technologies and algorithms

Capture the process for rapid development, software demonstration, projects

Design and execute within 10 weeks

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SpaceDrone: Benefits and Impacts

Provide low-cost, flight-like environment for the development and evaluation of space flight technologies or algorithms

Serve as a platform to raise TRL of novel technologies Build awareness of APL CORE flight software as mature and

versatile framework suitable for a wide range of applications in and out of space

Enhance technology demonstrations to sponsors

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SpaceDrone: Quadcopter Overview

Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 HD Camera, 720p 3 axis gyroscope 3 axis accelerometer 3 axis magnetometer 4 brushless inrunner motors (Optional) GPS USB recorder Pressure sensor/Ultrasound sensors for altitude measurement 60 FPS vertical QVGA camera for ground speed measurement WiFi bgn access point Android/iOS control app UDP Commanding/Telemetry API

– Commands: take off, land, move forward, rotate, etc

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SpaceDrone: Comparison to Spacecraft

Spacecraft (Leon3 UT699) SpaceDrone (RaspberryPi)

66 MHz SPARC Processor 700 MHz ARM Processor

32MB RAM 512MB RAM

RTEMS or VxWorks Real-Time OS Linux (Real-time extensions available)RTEMS available

L-3 InControl Ground System µMoc/Web-MOPS Ultra-lightweight ground system

cFE, PSP, OSAL, and CORE APL FSW Applications

cFE, PSP, OSAL, and CORE APL FSW Applications

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SpaceDrone: Design & Assembly

Challenge: Integrate Raspberry Pi and battery onto airframe while maintaining stable flight

Allow secure attachment of Pi, power source Save weight Allow stable flight

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SpaceDrone: CORE FSW Overview

APL CORE Flight Software - collection of reusable applications and libraries Used for satellite data systems and instruments, can be useful on

any embedded system Core Flight Executive (cFE) - portable, platform independent

embedded system framework developed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

APL-Core application software is flying on Van Allen Probes, will fly on Solar Probe Plus, and leverages software flown on MESSENGER, New Horizons, and STEREO

Supported platforms RAD-750 Leon3 ARM x86 x86_64

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SpaceDrone: Software Diagram

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SpaceDrone: New Flight Software App

Drone Interface, “DI” Integrates seamlessly into CORE Provides high-level interface to quadcopter avionics Dramatically reduces network load of commanding data (enable

drone ops on resource constrained links)

Easy integration with existing CORE suite Autonomy and Fault Management Software Guidance, Navigation, and Control Commanding infrastructure Telemetry output, recording, playback

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SpaceDrone: µMOC and Web-MOPS

µMOC (“micro-MOC”) Generic, raw telemetry and

command utility Reused from previous

projects, with improvements

Web-MOPS Graphical front-end yielding

animated telemetry charts and a commanding interface

Intended to mimic APL’s mission operations environment

Enables operations of the drone in a way that is consistent with APL’s approach toward space mission operations

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SpaceDrone: Results

Current system functionality Real-time commanding and control of commercial quadcopter Real-time and historical telemetry from all systems and sensors

Available functionality with entire CORE suite and configuration Autonomous, rule-macro commanding Relative and absolute time tag commanding File-based telemetry recording and CFDP-based playback System configuration via memory objects CPU and memory monitoring

SpaceDrone is ready to be used as a platform for future developments in flight software