{"title":"Validation Flight Experiment for a Sounding Balloon Photovoltaic-based Attitude Determination System","authors":"G. Cataldi, M. Gemignani, S. Marcuccio","doi":"10.1109/MetroAeroSpace51421.2021.9511760","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Sounding balloons have proven to be a very effective low-cost method to bring scientific and commercial payloads to the near-space environment. In the frame of our ongoing effort towards the development of a small stratospheric platform with autonomous flying capabilities, we have undertaken the design and manufacture of a flight experiment to verify the possibility to perform onboard attitude determination using the solar cell power output measurements to complement the inertial sensor. The system is based on six low-cost terrestrial solar cells placed on the sides of a box-shaped gondola, lifted to about 34 km altitude by a weather balloon. We describe the system architecture, the results of the first experimental flight and the post-landing attitude reconstruction.","PeriodicalId":236783,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE 8th International Workshop on Metrology for AeroSpace (MetroAeroSpace)","volume":"371 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"2021 IEEE 8th International Workshop on Metrology for AeroSpace (MetroAeroSpace)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MetroAeroSpace51421.2021.9511760","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Sounding balloons have proven to be a very effective low-cost method to bring scientific and commercial payloads to the near-space environment. In the frame of our ongoing effort towards the development of a small stratospheric platform with autonomous flying capabilities, we have undertaken the design and manufacture of a flight experiment to verify the possibility to perform onboard attitude determination using the solar cell power output measurements to complement the inertial sensor. The system is based on six low-cost terrestrial solar cells placed on the sides of a box-shaped gondola, lifted to about 34 km altitude by a weather balloon. We describe the system architecture, the results of the first experimental flight and the post-landing attitude reconstruction.