Nemesis Flight Computer

Advanced flight computer software for high-power rocketry, featuring real-time telemetry, sensor fusion, and autonomous flight state management.

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Table of Contents

• Overview
• Features
• Hardware
• Getting Started
• Building & Flashing
• Telemetry System
• Flight States
• Development
• Documentation
• Contributing
• License

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Overview

Nemesis is a sophisticated flight computer designed for the Aurora Rocket Team competition rockets. Built on the ESP32 platform with PlatformIO, it provides:

• Real-time sensor data acquisition from IMUs, barometers, and GPS
• Finite State Machine (FSM) for autonomous flight phase management
• Binary telemetry protocol over LoRa for efficient ground station communication
• Kalman filtering for accurate altitude and velocity estimation
• SD card logging for post-flight analysis
• FreeRTOS-based concurrent task management

This system has been developed to meet the demands of high-altitude flights with real-time decision-making capabilities and robust data logging.

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Features

Sensor Suite

• Inertial Measurement: BNO055 9-DOF IMU with sensor fusion, LIS3DHTR accelerometer
• Barometric Pressure: MS5611 high-precision barometers
• Navigation: u-blox GPS module with UBX protocol support

Flight Management

• 7-phase FSM: Idle → Armed → Powered Flight → Coasting → Apogee → Descent → Landed
• State-specific tasks: Concurrent execution of sensor sampling, data logging, and telemetry
• Transition detection: Accelerometer-based launch detection, barometric apogee detection
• Safety features: Automated arming sequences, failsafe mechanisms

Telemetry & Communication

• Binary protocol: Custom telemetry protocol for packet fragmentation
• LoRa radio: Long-range communication (868 MHz)
• Real-time metrics: Altitude, velocity, acceleration, orientation, GPS position, battery status and logging
• Ground station: Dedicated receiver with OLED display and serial output

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Hardware

Primary Flight Computer

• MCU: ESP32-based board (Arduino Nano ESP32 or similar)
• Storage: SD card module (SPI interface)
• Radio: SX1262 LoRa transceiver (RadioLib compatible)

Supported Sensors

Sensor	Interface	Purpose
BNO055	I2C	9-DOF IMU with built-in fusion
LIS3DHTR	I2C	High-G accelerometer
MS5611	I2C	Precision barometers
u-blox GPS	I2C/UART	Global positioning

Ground Station Hardware

• Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3: ESP32-S3 + SX1262 + OLED display
• Power: USB or battery (supports remote deployment)

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Module Organization

lib/
+-- control/          # FSM, state machine, flight logic
|   +-- RocketFSM     # Main FSM implementation
|   +-- states/       # State actions and transitions
|   +-- tasks/        # FreeRTOS tasks per flight phase
+-- BNO055/           # IMU driver
+-- MS5611/           # Barometer driver
+-- GPS/              # GNSS driver
+-- ...
+-- telemetry/        # Binary protocol, packet management
+-- LoRa/             # Radio transmitter/receiver
+-- kalman/           # Kalman filter implementations
+-- logger/           # SD card logging utilities
+-- data/             # Data structures (TelemetryPacket, etc.)

Key Design Patterns

• Dependency Injection: Sensors passed as shared_ptr to FSM for testability
• RAII: Automatic resource management for SD files, I2C devices
• Thread-safe logging: Mutex-protected serial output via Logger namespace

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

1. Install PlatformIO:

   # Via pip
   pip install platformio
   
   # Or install VSCode + PlatformIO IDE extension

2. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/AuroraRocketryTeam/Aurora_Rocketry_SW_24_25.git
   cd Aurora_Rocketry_SW_24_25

3. Install dependencies:

   pio pkg install

Configuration

Key settings are in lib/global/src/:

• config.h: Flight parameters, sensor calibration, thresholds
• pins.h: GPIO pin assignments for your hardware

Edit these files to match your specific hardware configuration.

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Building & Flashing

Default Environment (Arduino Nano ESP32)

# Build the project
pio run

# Upload to board
pio run --target upload

# Open serial monitor (115200 baud)
pio device monitor

Custom Environment

Modify platformio.ini to add your board. Example for a custom ESP32 target:

[env:my_custom_board]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32dev
framework = arduino
monitor_speed = 115200
build_flags = ${env.build_flags}
lib_deps = ${env.lib_deps}

Then build with: pio run -e my_custom_board

Ground Station

The telemetry receiver is a separate Arduino sketch:

# Navigate to receiver folder
cd lib/LoRa/src/

# Open telemetry_lora_receiver.ino in Arduino IDE or:
pio ci --board=heltec_wifi_lora_32_V3 telemetry_lora_receiver.ino

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Building & Flashing

Default Environment (Arduino Nano ESP32)

# Build the project
pio run

# Upload to board
pio run --target upload

# Open serial monitor (115200 baud)
pio device monitor

Custom Environment

Modify platformio.ini to add your board. Example for a custom ESP32 target:

[env:my_custom_board]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32dev
framework = arduino
monitor_speed = 115200
build_flags = ${env.build_flags}
lib_deps = ${env.lib_deps}

Then build with: pio run -e my_custom_board

Ground Station

The telemetry receiver is a separate Arduino sketch:

# Navigate to receiver folder
cd lib/LoRa/src/

# Open telemetry_lora_receiver.ino in Arduino IDE or:
pio ci --board=heltec_wifi_lora_32_V3 telemetry_lora_receiver.ino

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Telemetry System

Binary Protocol

Telemetry uses a fixed-size packet structure for reliable LoRa transmission:

struct TelemetryPacket {
    uint32_t timestamp;          // Milliseconds since boot
    RocketState state;           // Current flight state
    float altitude;              // Meters ASL
    float vertical_velocity;     // m/s
    float acceleration[3];       // X, Y, Z in m/s²
    float angular_velocity[3];   // Roll, pitch, yaw in deg/s
    float gps_lat, gps_lon;      // Degrees
    uint8_t gps_fix;            // Fix quality
    float battery_voltage;       // Volts
    // ... + CRC checksum
};

Packet Management

• Fragmentation: Large packets split into LoRa-compatible chunks
• Reassembly: Sequence numbers ensure correct reconstruction
• CRC validation: 16-bit CRC for error detection
• Metrics tracking: RSSI, SNR, packet loss, throughput

Transmission Parameters

• Frequency: 868 MHz (Europe) / 915 MHz (US)
• Spreading Factor: SF7 (fast, shorter range) to SF12 (slow, max range)
• Bandwidth: 125 kHz
• Coding Rate: 4/7

Airtime for ~64-byte payload at SF7: ~50-80 ms

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Flight States

State	Entry Condition	Active Tasks	Exit Condition
IDLE	Power-on	Status LED	Arming sequence
ARMED	User input	All sensors active	Accel > launch threshold
POWERED_FLIGHT	Launch detected	High-rate logging	Motor burnout (accel < threshold)
COASTING	Burnout	Altitude tracking	Apogee (velocity < 0)
APOGEE	Velocity negative	Deploy drogue chute	Altitude dropping
DESCENT	Post-apogee	GPS tracking	Altitude < 300m (deploy main)
LANDED	Near-zero velocity	Beeper, data flush	Manual reset

Transition logic is in lib/control/src/states/TransitionManager.cpp.

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Development

Code Style

• C++17 standard (enforced by -std=gnu++17)
• Doxygen comments for all public APIs
• Include guards and #pragma once for headers

Debugging

Enable verbose logging in config.h:

#define LOG_LEVEL LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG

View logs via serial monitor:

pio device monitor --baud 115200

Adding a New Sensor

1. Create driver in lib/YourSensor/src/
2. Implement ISensor interface (if applicable)
3. Add to RocketFSM initialization
4. Include in relevant state tasks
5. Update TelemetryPacket if needed

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Documentation

This project's docs are publicly available in the Github pages of this repository. Docs are generated using Doxygen inside a Github action.

Generate API Docs

The project includes a Doxygen configuration:

# Install Doxygen
sudo apt-get install doxygen

# Generate HTML documentation
doxygen Doxyfile

# Open in browser
xdg-open docs/html/index.html

Contributing

We welcome contributions from the Aurora Rocket Team and the wider rocketry community!

Workflow

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature
3. Commit changes: git commit -m 'Add amazing feature'
4. Push to branch: git push origin feature/amazing-feature
5. Open a Pull Request

Guidelines

• Follow existing code style and naming conventions
• Add Doxygen comments for new public APIs
• Update documentation for user-facing changes
• Test on hardware before submitting (if possible)

Issue Reporting

Found a bug? Have a feature request? Open an issue with:

• Clear description of the problem/feature
• Steps to reproduce (for bugs)
• Expected vs. actual behavior
• Hardware/software versions

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Third-Party Libraries

• RadioLib: LGPL-3.0 (LoRa communication)
• BME680 Library: BSD (Bosch Sensortec)
• SparkFun u-blox Library: MIT
• Eigen: MPL2 (linear algebra)
• TinyEKF: LGPL (Kalman filtering)

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Team

Aurora Rocket Team - Università di Bologna

For questions or collaboration opportunities, reach out via GitHub issues or the team's official channels.

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Acknowledgments

• Bosch Sensortec for excellent sensor documentation
• RadioLib community for LoRa protocol support
• PlatformIO team for the best embedded development platform
• FreeRTOS for reliable real-time task scheduling

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