MZ104 Contest Entry
Form All software developed for the contest must be released under a free license. For purposes of this contest, a "free license" is one that is listed BOTH in "OSI Approved Licenses" at www.opensource.org/licenses AND ALSO in the Free Software Foundation's "GPL-Compatible, Free Software Licenses" at www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses.
Employees of SSC, Tri-M Engineering, M-Systems, and ZF Linux, and
To enter, please send us mail in ASCII text to [email protected] What is the working title for your project? "Stabilized Instrumentation Platform Controller for a Stratospheric Balloon" What need or desire will your embedded Linux project satisfy? The Loudoun Amateur Radio Group (LARG) is developing an Amateur Television (ATV) payload for a high altitude balloon flight. The payload will ascend to the vicinity of 100,000 feet (32 km) and will transmit television and telemetry signals to ground stations. Since the payload is suspended from the balloon by a single line, the payload tends to rotate randomly, causing the downlinked ATV images to be confusing and difficult to view. LARG proposes to use the MZ-104 as a payload controller to dynamically stabilize the instrumentation platform via wind vanes or rotating mass, monitor battery state-of-charge (SOC) and charging rate from on board solar cells, collect environmental and state-of-health (SOH) data for transmission to ground stations, interpret and execute uplinked commands, monitor the payloads location from GPS data, and to execute an autonomous restart procedure if recovery is delayed. What are your qualifications for carrying out an embedded Linux project, including programming and hardware experience? You may include URLs of related work, either hobby or professional. Over the past few years, LARG as developed, built and launched two high altitude packages which can be viewed at history.k4lrg.org . The first package, flown in April, 1999, was not recovered. A more sophisticated package was flown on October 21, 2000 (Flight 2000A) and was successfully recovered. Flight 2000A transmitted essential State-of-health (SOH) data to the ground, and contained a 100 milliwatt VHF transmitter. LARG has two more payloads under development: a still camera payload and the ATV payload. Project/Technical Lead: Tom Dawson, WB3AKD. Tom has 25 years experience in Analog and Radio Frequency design, including the design and test of small spacecraft communications subsystems and UHF and microwave ground stations and presently provides RF communications design and test services to the US Navy. Most recently, Tom was project lead for the development and test of Linux control software for a PCI data acquisition card used in a US Navy sonar system. Software Lead: Larry McCaig, KC1YC. Larry has over 25 years experience in programming and software development of which 10 Years is in embedded software development specifically for automated operation of spectrometers and other scientific instrumentation. His software development experience includes the use of Forth, assembly language, Basic and C. Webmaster and Launch Team Lead: Colonel Norman W. Styer, AI2C, US. Army (Retired). Norm is a former Director of the U.S. Army Communications Command's Center for Space Systems. Maintains and continually updates the history.k4lrg.org website. Norm also plans and organizes all our launch campaigns in addition to leading the launch operations team. What additional hardware are you considering using? (you are not required to use it in your final project)
1) Multiplexed A/D converter. What software do you plan to develop? What tools and libraries do you plan to use? All software pertaining to payload operation and attitude control will be developed. Certain AX.25 communications packet communications algorithms already exist and will be used for the generation of downlink telemetry data streams, where appropriate. Do you plan to use an embedded Linux distribution? If so, which one? Not other than what comes with the MZ-104. What sources of information and support will you consult while carrying out your project? The LARG Balloon Team already makes extensive use of other High Altitude Balloon teams' reports, as well as technical data sheets for the hardware components and sensors presently being flown. This effort will require additional resources including technical performance data for available solar cells, and of course, software and programming information and articles from embedded software periodicals. Please include your contact information:
1. Your full name as you
would like it to appear in Linux Journal 2. Your shipping address and phone number (confidential)
3. What to link your name to on the web site if
you are a finalist Development Considerations: Will the project either satisfy a real need, or have aesthetic, entertainment, or scientific value? The project continues LARG's efforts in high altitude balloon flights and enhances both the features and capabilities of the payload. The autonomous restart ability of the payload, for which the MZ-104 is ideal, provides significantly greater recovery probability, enabling the payload to be re-flown for scientific and educational studies. Does the person or team have skills and/or motivation appropriate to carrying out the project? The LARG Balloon Team has experience in the successful design, development flight and recovery of High-altitude microprocessor-controlled payloads. The LARG Balloon Committee includes a number of practicing and retired electronics engineers providing over a century of experience in the design of remote sensing and RF communications devices and software development. Members of the Balloon committee own all the necessary electronic, and mechanical equipment needed to design, construct and test the payload. . Is the project different from other, previously constructed embedded Linux projects? The project is unique in that it utilizes the stability of LINUX and the features of the MZ-104 to achieve an autonomous and survivable near-space instrumentation system. Previous Amateur High altitude balloon flights have not included attitude control nor autonomous restart apabilities, nor have used LINUX based processors. To our knowledge, Embedded LINUX systems have not been used in small high altitude instrumentation packages to date. Stage Two: Selection of Final Winners Judges will select final winners based on the following criteria: How well does your project fill the need stated in your original proposal? Does your project make efficient use of the components selected? Is your project constructed in a craftspersonlike, high-quality and robust manner? (both hardware and software) Is your software easy to understand for a user and for a potential contributor? How well does your project web site explain your project for users and for people who want to build something similar?
Winning Categories 1. Most likely to succeed as a commercial product 2. Best tool for facilitating human communication 3. Most fun 4. Best learning project to help others understand embedded Linux development 5. Most creatively useless
For Contest Rules and Overview please visit |