Ground S/n

Ground station will be done by using MATLAB software

 MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a numerical computing environment 

We will communicate our Arduino uno via "COM" connection which is a serial communication interface. 

GUI will be made using matlab and finally (.csv) file will be made

The wireless communication will be done using X-BEE modules

We are going to use Series -2B Xbee little communication devices for radio comunication between the cansat and ground station

with wire antenna

The Xbee that we are going to use is a high power module which has a line of sight range of 2.5 miles which more than enough for us.

with rpsma socket

     
We are going to use RP-SMA  antenna for xbees in ground station and wire antenna for those in container and payload

The configuration of Xbee

The Xbees need to be configured. They have their own micro controller system embedded in it ,So we have to programm them too. The programming environment is developed by XCTU software from digi. its available only for windows users. the programme that we upload in our Xbee's MCU is called "firmware", which is analogous to sketch of arduino.

Basic configuration can be changed by XCTU environment and its very easy too.

please download XCTU from the following link

please update ur xbee firmware regularly by pressing "check for updates"button from the XCTU software

We will use xbee in AT mode

 

Problems everyone face at their first approach to xbee-

The most uncommon thing about xbee(s) are their breakout pins. they are not analogues to that of the pin spacing of standard bread board.

so it becomes difficult for a fresher to experiment with a xbee.

before buying a xbee you must first choose your xbee shield so that you can breakout the xbee and you can connect it to your breadboard.

we had bought our shield from Adafruit industries.

they are real small and handy.

  

we have to setup a ground station of our cansat. for that we have to make our own Mast antenna setup.

till now we are planning to use tripod stand of a camera as the mast antenna base.

for antenna we are using 2.4ghz rpsma antenna. 

The GUI of the ground station software is still under developement, we are making it using Microsoft visual basic software.

I



Till this time we are facing problem in fetching the telemetry from the transmitter XBEE

whenever there is a miss in telemetry the software stops responding.

we are working to overcome this big issue.

currently we are very busy in preparing our PDR and our university internal examinations



We are using FTDI breakout to interface with com ports directly. 

FTDI

Previously arduino was used for receiving and manipulation telemetry.

now we have removed Arduino from the ground station. 

lets see how far can we go with this new idea.!!!