Software

Software development is an integral part of the overall design. The software written manages communication with all sensors and storage devices as well as control events such as parachute deployment.

Main tasks accomplished by software:

• Read sensor measurements
• Store data locally on SD card
• Transmit data to ground station
• Trigger parachute deployments

The software part of the design was implemented on the STM32F407 ARM processor. It has a processing speed of 168 MHz. The processor has 1 Mbyte of flash to save the code on it and 192 Kbyte of RAM for random data access. The 144 pin package was chosen for the project to allow future development on the board with the same type of processor. The processor has up to 140 input/output general purpose pins. It also has the main two communication protocol needed for the project which are I2C and UART.