NAVION - navion-dev

NAVION is a thrust-vector-controlled rocket accompanied by a custom two-board flight computer I designed, built, and flew.

Results

NAVION's maiden flight reached a ~47 m apogee. The active TVC control loop tracked pitch & yaw through boost and was able to correct 4.5° of yaw error before losing control due to overwhelming pitch error and low motor power, after which the vehicle coasted and descended under parachute to a detected touchdown.

Flight profile

Altitude, vertical velocity, and vertical acceleration across boost, descent, and touchdown, reconstructed from onboard sensor data, see maiden flight data:

TVC response

Tracked gimbal deflection (X/Y) for pitch & yaw during the boost phase, up to TVC lockout at burnout:

Hardware

Flight computer

Two-board avionics stack: an STM32F4 control board and STM32F2 navigation board communicating over UART DMA, carrying a 9-axis IMU, barometer, GNSS receiver, SPI flash, and µSD storage.

TVC gimbal

3D-printed 2-axis gimbal actuating the solid rocket motor with ±5° of pitch/yaw deflection, driven by two digital servos:

Test footage

TVC gimbal actuating in response to real-time orientation changes of the flight computer

Ground test of the black-powder parachute ejection system.

What's in this repo

• Code/ - All the firmware for the flight computer.
  • - Firmware for the control (CNTRL) board, targeting the STM32F405RG (STM32CubeIDE Project).