Software Hardware Hardware Hardware Paperwork

Software
Our current plans for developing the stability and control aspect of this are as follows:

1)Make the system fly on a Trex 600 RC helicopter.
2)Move all but the lowest level rate command servo loops from the helicopter to the rocket.

Toward that end we have been using a nice RC heli sim from source forge to simulate the helicopter systems in software. We have modified the sim to only update the data at the same rate as our IMU and GPS. The windows version of the simulator does not have any kind of control or autopilot, just a comment in the code that says put your control laws here.... Using that I've tuned the insane number of PID loops and adjusted it so it will fly a whole XPC LLC flight from start to finish. (You can run my compiled version of the code here) Again this is an exe that is compiled for my use etc etc .

Hardware Hardware Hardware
I took the video camera and wandered around the house and shop and
took video of: (Video is here (Fixed) )

• The helicopter with GPS, IMU and computer mounted on it.
• The test stand we have been running.
• The first vehicle airframe.

Not awesome video and if you have not been following the blog it probably won't make sense, but my guess is that people like to see hardware from time to time.

Paperwork
No show stoppers in paperwork land. This last week I had to provide XPC a Mishap response plan. I think such plans should be really simple so that you can actually do them in time of crisis. The document is here.