Red Hill rocket

The red hill rocket employs a novel thrust vectoring system wherein the rocket can tilt a cluster of motors attached the a thrust plate using only 3 motors. The inverse kinematics of this first system was very simple as the plate was simply attached to 3 strings driven by small motors. However precise angle control of the geared motors was a challenge.

Fishing wire was wrapped around a 3d printed piece that connected to the motor and 2 potentiometers. 2 of them were needed because they each only had about 200 degrees of useable data. Combining these sensors and filtering interference, vibration while counting the turns of the pulleys turned out to be a challenge. With all this done tuning a closed loop PID controller was the next challenge.

Throughout the testing however the fishing wire proved too elastic and broke too easily. Eventually I moved on too a different thrust vectoring design with my Chasing Sunset rocket. This rocket was sadly abandoned although it served as a useful testbed for construction and parachute deployment systems.