Team JURBAN has designed an efficient, long-range communications device that can fit within a 24 inch cubic enclosure. Using an inflatable dish from GATR technologies as a low-powered, high gain antenna (0 in antenna capable of a 2Mbps data link rate, with four back-up, lower data rate omnidirectional S-Band dipoles that also act as a short range communication system. The real innovation in the design is our Earth tracking algorithm and control system implementation, which uses three redundant 6 degree-of-freedom Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). These IMUs implement a quaternion math-based Kalman filter for improved stability and removes the possibility of gimbal lock, a dangerous problem which removes one degree of freedom. This had been a problem for the Apollo 11 astronauts and continues today in many engineering applications. Our solution reduces costs by greatly reducing power consumption, a difficulty in many similar systems. Furthermore, the combination of long-range communications capability, an inflatable dish, and the elimination of gimbal lock makes our device a viable solution for portable yet effective transmissions.
Voting
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ABOUT THE ENTRANT
- Name:Blaze Sanders
- Type of entry:teamTeam members:Team JURBAN
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/jurban - Profession:
- Number of times previously entering contest:1
- Blaze's favorite design and analysis tools:Autodesk Inventor, NI Labview, and Altium Designer
- For managing CAD data Blaze's company uses:Autodesk Vault
- Blaze's hobbies and activities:Space Enterprise
- Blaze belongs to these online communities:Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube
- Blaze is inspired by:Human exploration of the galaxy.
- Patent status:pending