Run2Sat I: Design and implementation of a CanSat

with Autogyro System

1st Franco Rivadeneira 2nd Diego Godinez 3rd Kioshi Kiyan
Faculty of Science and Engineering Faculty of Science and Engineering Faculty of Science and Engineering
Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
Lima, Peru Lima, Peru Lima, Peru
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
2023 IEEE Colombian Caribbean Conference (C3) | 979-8-3503-4179-9/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/C358072.2023.10436175

4th Victor Huayapa 5th Sebastian Acosta 6th Nicole Perez

Faculty of Science and Engineering Faculty of Science and Engineering Faculty of Science and Engineering
Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
Lima, Peru Lima, Peru Lima, Peru
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

7th Abel Hinostroza 8th Diego Arce

Faculty of Science and Engineering Engineering Department
Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
Lima, Peru Lima, Peru
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—This paper proposes the design of a canned pi-

cosatellite with an autogyro system capable of ensuring the
integrity of an egg payload during both the flight and landing
phases. The design of this satellite was based on the requirements
outlined in the “Concurso Iberoamericano de Satélites Enlatados
2023” guidelines. The findings made in this paper hold impli-
cations for applications involving the transportation and safe
landing of delicate payloads in space exploration missions. As
a result of the implementation, the objective of deploying the
secondary face of the primary was accomplished, and the weather
parameters were transmitted. On the other hand, the autogyro
mechanism managed a speed reduction efficiency of 84.21%.
Keywords—CanSat, Autogyro, Remote Sensing

I. I NTRODUCTION
A canned picosatellite, also known as CanSat, is a minia-
turized satellite designed to resemble the form and size of a
Fig. 1. System Concept of Operations.
small can. The goal is to have a small device that performs
the same tasks as a normal-size satellite such as meteorology-
related functions [1]. This includes transmitting temperature
and humidity levels to a ground station [2]. In the “Con- real-time to a ground station using XBee modules for wireless
curso Iberoamericano de Satélites Enlatados 2023” [3], the data transmission.
picosatellite will undergo an ascent phase to an altitude of The election of the casing material is crucial because it
400 meters with the assistance of a drone and overall its should be resistant and lightweight, for instance, PLA, ABS,
journey is transmitting data as shown in Fig 1. The main which has proper mechanic properties [4], or fiberglass [5],
objective of this project is the design and construction of a which is the best one technically, but the most expensive
picosatellite with the mission of safeguarding an egg payload too; these materials are also valid for the propellers. For the
during the flight and descent, ensuring its survival without protection of the egg, it is common to use soft materials
any damage after landing. Additionally, variables such as such as sponges, bubble wrap, or springs which allow the
pressure, temperature, orientation, and acceleration throughout dissipation of the energy [6]. In the case of the descent
the picosatellite descent will be measured and transmitted in mechanism, for the requirements of the contest is mandatory

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 TABLE I ascent of the autogyro subsystem (Fig. 3) with respect to
G ENERAL SPECIFICATIONS the container and to improve the resistance to impact loads,
SPECIFICATION VALUE
produced during the crash, in the direction parallel to the
longitudinal plane of the cylinder as shown in Fig. 2.
Maximum height 22 cm
Internally, the PLA container has four cantilevered supports
Maximum Diameter 10 cm
located at the same height where, by means of nylon bolts,
Energy 9V battery it is coupled to the electronic board [14]. In addition, the
Descent Mechanism Actuatorless container has grooves parallel to the transverse plane of the
Remote Range 400 m container; the lower grooves allow the attachment of the base
Maximum Weight 500 g cover, which has a groove to hold the egg protection subsystem
Maximum landing Speed 6 m/s (Fig. 5), while the upper grooves allow the attachment of
the element that prevents the unintentional deployment of the
autogyro subsystem. The clamping element is released when
to use autogyro, some usual options are the NACA profile actuated by a servo motor that allows the alignment of the
and the maple seed shape [7], also it can vary the number of clamping element with slots in the longitudinal direction. That
blades employed going from three [8], four [9] or if there are is, a servomotor rotates the clamping element by releasing it
two platforms of propellers is used six or eight [10]. It should from the transverse grooves and allowing its release by means
be considered that the more propellers employed, the more of the longitudinal grooves, relative to the container.
reduction of velocity, however, it increases the weight as well. With respect to the secondary payload, as shown in Fig.
The objective of this paper is to present an integrated system 2, symmetrical hexagonal holes were drilled for the same
design of a CanSat, covering the mechanical, electronic and purpose as in the primary load [15]. To allow the coupling,
interface design. In terms of impact, our design contributes internal cylindrical structures were designed by means of
to showing a particular autogyro mechanism [11] which is a bolts, between the secondary load and the cover containing
purely mechanical design system that has not been abundantly the servomotor, in charge of the deployment of the autogyro
researched in CanSat designs. system. Considering the specifications of the competition, the
This paper is divided into three chapters, not including the surface of the secondary payload will be covered with onion
introduction. First, the mechanical design is explained based skin paper, except for a hole in the center of the top face since
on the requirements of the competition [3]. Encompassing, the the hole will be used to attach the CanSat to the drone.
mean of the autogyro mechanism deployment, the protection For the design of the autogyro system, calculations were
of the egg, and the distribution of the components. Then, there made considering the velocity parameters established for the
will be detailed electronic connections for the primary and mission [16]. Based on the technical specifications of Table I,
secondary payload. Subsequently, it is shown the interface that the CanSat must reach the ground with a maximum velocity
corresponds to the ground station where could be seen the of 12 m/s. In this regard, the decision was made to reduce the
real-time measurements. Finally, it exposes the measures in velocity to 6 m/s to ensure the physical preservation of the
graphics obtained over the descent of the CanSat and discusses egg.
the results in order to make the final conclusions. Firstly, a kinematic analysis of the CanSat during free fall
II. M ECHATRONIC D ESIGN from 400 m to 250 m was conducted. Considering the lift
force generated by the relative motion of the air against the
With the purpose of effectively developing the design of lower face of the CanSat [17], the system’s velocity prior to
the CanSat, the picosatellite should accomplish the demands payload separation was determined to be 34.55 m/s, which is
of the contest, above the dimensions, weight, and so on as the terminal velocity, meaning a speed reduction of 28.5 m/s
shown in Table I. In addition, the picosatellite should be the since the landing speed was 6 m/s. Subsequently, the payloads
cheapest as possible.
A. Mechanical Design
The CanSat is divided into primary and secondary loads,
as shown in Fig. 2. The primary load is divided into sub-
systems due to its complexity. From the top to the bottom is
the Autogyro subsystem, followed by the electronics and the
egg protection system.
In order to obtain a tough container with the lowest possible
mass, for the primary payload casing, a cylindrical container
was designed with hexagonal holes [12], equidistantly dis-
tributed, with rounded corners to reduce the stress concentra-
tion [13]. Moreover, columns aligned to the propeller positions
were added to serve, mainly, as guides during the relative Fig. 2. 3D Model of the Mechanical System Assembled.

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 Fig. 3. Autogyro System.
Fig. 4. Autogyro System Free Body Diagram.
TABLE II
AUTOGYRO PARAMETERS

PARAMETER SYMBOL VALUE Ah ∗ ρ ∗ CD 2 ∗ v 2

FD 1 = (3)
Lift NACA 6412 Constant CL 1.6 2
Draft NACA 6412 Constant CD 1 1.15
Draft CanSat Surface Constant CD 2 1.05 n ∗ (FL + FD 2 ) + FD 1 − m ∗ g = a ∗ m (4)
Air Density ρ 0.91 kg/m3
Air Speed vS 10 m/s n = 3.14 ≈ 4
Descendant Speed v 25 m/s
Propeller Surface Area Ah 0.003 m2 Hence, it was decided to use 4 propellers, thus expecting an
CanSat Surface Area Ac 0.008 m2
average acceleration of 3.32 m/s2 upwards as its shown in.
However, due to the material efficiency, the acceleration could
change.
The order for the final egg protection consists of multiple
are detached by rotating the cross-shaped structure (Rotor)
layers of EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) foam, followed by
attached to the servomotor (Fig. 3), releasing the autogyro
a white TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) casing. Based on
subsystem in the process. This subsystem is actuated by the
tests conducted and best practices found in scientific articles,
relative flow of air, resulting in a lift force and a drag force
the decision was made to add springs to absorb the impact
that reduces the descent CanSat speed.
of the primary payload with the ground, initially considering
The selection of the blade airfoils was made taking into the use of four springs [20]. The Fig. 5 shows the 3D model
account the velocity analysis described above and the de- assembly of the egg protection system.
sired final velocity. The Airfoil Tools calculator was used
to compare the behavior of the airfoils. As a result, NACA B. Electrical Design
6412 airfoil was chosen for the [18] autogyro propellers, due Electrical Architecture can be divided into primary load
to its geometrical efficiency and reduced cross-sectional area and secondary load. The primary load is where the egg is
compared to other pre-designed airfoils. The chord length and being protected. In Fig. 6, it is schematized the connections
the length of the propellers were determined mainly on the of electrical components using a connection diagram. The
basis of the available space inside the CanSat and the lift and primary load is powered by a 9V battery, as stipulated by
drag forces required to reduce the speed [19]. the competition rules. To accomplish the task of pressure,
According to the free body diagram shown in Fig. 4 during
the free fall three main forces, apart from the weight, act, being
the lift force (equation 1), drag force (equation 2), and drag
CanSat force (equation 3). The number of propellers of the
autogryo system could be calculated using equation 4, which
uses the previous equations, and the parameters values showed
in Table II

Ah ∗ ρ ∗ CL ∗ vS2
FL = (1)
2

Ac ∗ ρ ∗ C D 1 ∗ v 2
FD 1 = (2) Fig. 5. Egg protection system.
2

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 provided regarding the interpretation of the graphs and the
possible defects that may have arisen. The data was transmitted
every second in order to obtain a detailed graph, without
saturating the XBee. On the other hand, the graphs start 650
seconds after the CanSat was powered on, due to the delay that
occurred from the power-on of the CanSat to the initiation of
the mission.
Fig. 6. Primary Load Connection Diagram. A. Data Obtained
The collected data from all sensors is shown in Fig. 10. It is
known that both pressure and temperature decline as altitude
increases. Consequently, it is expected that the measurements
will exhibit this pattern. Since the system does not incorporate
a sensor to directly measure altitude, the following relation-
ship, according to the International Standard Atmosphere, was
used to estimate it
P [kP a] = 101.325 ∗ (1 − 2.25577 ∗ 10−5 ∗ H)5.2559 (5)
Fig. 7. Secondary Load Connection Diagram.
The pressure graph shows that the maximum pressure was
77.9 kPa, corresponding to a ground level of 2170 meters. The
temperature, and inclination measurements we selected the minimum pressure was 74.2 kPa, associated with a maximum
IMU GY-91 considering its low power consumption, reduced altitude of 2540 meters. Considering that the data measured
dimensions, and low cost. Furthermore, in order to accomplish by the sensor was rounded up to the first decimal place
the task of measurement of distance between the primary to reduce the telemetry message, there is an uncertainty of
load and secondary load we selected the GPS NEO-6M at least ±0.05 kPa or about ±5 meters in each calculated
considering its low cost and reduced dimension. In addition, altitude. Based on these values, it can be estimated that the
we considered the use of an LED as an indicator of the correct CanSat reached an altitude of about 370 meters, which is
operation of the microcontroller. Regarding the power-up of consistent with the executed mission of elevating it to a
all components, it was necessary to design a power regulation height of 400 meters above the ground. In addition to the
step and a battery voltage sensor using a voltage divider. precision problem mentioned above, the remaining meters can
On the other hand, the secondary load’s electrical archi- be attributed to meteorological conditions, which influence
tecture includes a microcontroller, an actuator, sensors, and a atmospheric pressure and may deviate the results from the
battery. Fig. 7 The secondary load is also powered by a 9V relationship described by equation 5.
battery. From the temperature graph, it can be observed that the
The criteria employed for component selection included temperature starts at approximately 44 °C and reaches its
weight, measurement range, precision (in the case of sensors), minimum value of about 31 °C a few seconds after landing,
power consumption, supply voltage, and price. which occurs at 850 seconds from the CanSat’s power-on.
However, the sensor was expected to record a temperature of
C. User Interface 25 °C when it was powered on. One possible explanation for
The interface design was implemented using the Node-RED this phenomenon is the location of the inertial sensor, which
programming tool [21], which allows reading data transmitted was close to the microcontroller, whose constant operation,
through the XBee RX node. Subsequently, functions are ap- may have caused heat buildup inside the CanSat.
plied to extract the data from the received JSON object [22].
Similarly, by using functions, the temperature, pressure, alti-
tude, acceleration on the X, Y, and Z axes, distance, secondary
payload direction, and battery percentage transmitted by the
CanSat are obtained. Finally, using this data, the inclination
on the X and Y axes, as well as the velocity on the Z axis, are
calculated and stored in a .csv file for further data analysis.
Fig. 8 shows the graphical interface that displays the real-time
data read from the mentioned sensors.

III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION

This chapter presents the graphs obtained from the data
collected during the ascent and descent of the implemented
CanSat as Fig. 9 shows. Furthermore, a detailed analysis is Fig. 8. CanSat GUI.

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 Fig. 9. CanSat Assembled.

In addition, the battery of the system was measured and

transmitted during the flight, the values showed a decrease
of about 4 percent from the start to the end of the mission.
Moreover, the system continued sending data until it was found
on land and turned off.

B. Mission Analysis
Based on the data obtained from pressure, altitude, and
temperature graphs, the system’s performance can be assessed.
The mission is comprised of four phases: flight, drop, autogyro
deployment, and landing. During the flight phase, a drone
was responsible for elevating the CanSat to 400 meters. The
altitude graph depicts a steady increase in altitude until the
2400 meters was reached. Since the last points of data in this
phase also display a similar rate of change, it is reasonable
to assume that communication was lost for a few seconds.
For this reason, a timestamp should have been included in the
transmitted message.
Once the maximum altitude was reached, the drop phase
began and the system descended freely. According to the
mission instructions, the autogyro should have been released
upon crossing the 2400-meter mark. However, the altitude
graph does not indicate any shift in trend until the 2250
meters. This altitude could be closer to the moment when
the autogyro subsystem was actually deployed, which aligns
with the experiment’s observations. Finally, the landing oc-
curred at a higher speed than the estimations, resulting in the
mechanical structure collapsing upon impact. Nonetheless, all
the electronic components survived the landing and continued
transmitting information until the pieces were found and shut
off. Fig. 10. Measurements graph.

C. Autogyro Performance
In order to analyze the performance of the autogyro mecha- 0 m/s when it reached the maximum altitude. After it was
nism, the velocity graph was calculated using the height data. released by the drone, the CanSat velocity began to decrease
As it is shown in Fig. 11 the CanSat reached a maximum until the autogyro mechanism was deployed. From this point
ascendant speed of approximately 18 m/s and decreased to onwards, the CanSat descendent speed began to decrease as it

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 monitoring using computer vision techniques [23]. Moreover,
due to the fact that the autogyro spring did not have a guide
on which to limit itself, the descent was unstable, and the
propellers were not in a transverse plane, which is detrimental
to the balance of the system. The proposal consists of placing
a cylindrical frame that allows only the longitudinal extension
of the spring and validating it in the field.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the following groups for their
financial support in the development of this work. Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Perú, Grupo de Robótica PUCP, Fac-
ulty of Sciences and Engineering, Core Facilities - FABCORE
Fig. 11. Calculated Velocity graph. and Technology Innovation Group PUCP.
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