Specifications

FASTER Engineering Model

6.5.3 Magnetometer acquisition block

This block was added because of the need to understand how the magnetic fields

generated by the electronic equipment, placed near the I.M.U, can affect the integrated

magnetometers measure. In order to do this a second 3-axial magnetometer (the same

Applied Physics 539 used onboard ALMASat-1) will be placed on a boom fixed to the

external POD, in order to be sufficiently far away from unwanted stray magnetic fields

[Ref (50)].

At present, with the I.M.U installed in the internal management and computing unit,

test revealed that despite the presence of an hard drive with its magnetic heads effects are

almost negligible. In the final system the I.M.U will be placed as close as possible to the

acquisition device, as seen in Chapter 4 and mechanical shutters tend to generate strong

magnetic fields to move blades.

Block structure is similar to those used in previous sections for the GPS receiver and

I.M.U unit, layout is depicted in

Figure 70: Magnetometer acquisition block scheme

6.5.4 Canon EOS 450D Management Block

Purpose of this block is the control of the camera shot using the GPS timing and the

camera arm switch status acquisition. Inputs are taken from the GPS block, in particular

the following variables: sentences counter, latitude, longitude and altitude (Figure 73).

Two modes of operation are implemented: the first one utilizes the camera arm

switch position, manually controlled by the pilot or a system operator, to enable image

acquisition while the second one, which at present has never been used during in flight

campaigns, proposes a completely autonomous control strategy based on aircraft position.