Working on updating the state machine and control loop logic to fit the new parabolic flight trajectory.
Considerations:
- "Define Microgravity Detection Method": Accelerometer threshold. Manual observer trigger may waste time, but can be included as a fallback measure, and a timer seems like it could cause us to continue doing science when we are in 1.8g. Accelerometer thresholds seem like the most robust method. I also propose that we could add a gravimeter as an additional, redundant measurement.
- Do we go to science mode if appropriate when exiting safe mode or go to descent?
- Do we allow backtracking states if we get a single mistaken reading? Or require two instances of past-threshold readings to switch states? Or do we read a set of readings that occurred within the time since the past CL iteration, and take the last few off the end? Or establish minimum times for the non-science stages, to decrease the chance that we switch based on a single anomalous measurement?
- Should we divide data based on which science session it was received in, to keep track of which measurements had large gaps between them?
- Should we use direction of gravity relative to the accelerometer as a second piece of information when we switch between normal states? Do we use this to allow going from ascent to descent or descent to ascent? Or do we just use it when going from safe mode to a non-safe state and rely on the magnitude of the gravitational force for switching between the non-safe states?
Very messy state machine sketch (not the actual diagram):
