Abstract

ILBK Solutions seeks to design, develop, and construct unique and reliable flight computer solutions. In the booming aviation and defense industry, specifically rocketry, it is critical to each mission that core components in flight are properly tested and ruggedized and there is no room for failure.

Problem

HSS has already made rockets, so what makes this project different from theirs? The answer is that our project is to improve upon their previous work, fixing issues that arose during the last iteration of the rocket. One of the main issues this project attempts to address is the lack of error-detection in the previous rocket. Sure, error detection is important, but usually computers are pretty accurate, so why such a focus on error-detection? The harsh conditions produced by flying high in the atmosphere at high speeds can physically affect the computer, possibly causing bits to be flipped erroneously. This is a much larger possibility than normal computers sitting on a desk somewhere on the surface of the earth.

Solution

The ILBK team has designed a solution to create an added amount of redundancy to the systems already in place for small to medium sized rockets. The newly designed flight computers will have three processors running the necessary operations separately. After completion the operations results will be compared. If the processors do not read the same values then clearly something has gone wrong.

Results

The ILBK team currently is in the process of completing a prototype using three arduinos, LEDs, and a computer GUI to simulate the process the flight computer would perform in an actual rocket. After mocking up design plans using the free software Fritzing parts were ordered to construct a working prototype.