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Post by Austin MnSGC on Jun 22, 2016 11:24:19 GMT -7
During our flight on June 21st, we were able to get video to stream while the balloon was very near its peak altitude. However, we couldn't get the stream to be reliable, and it would last at most for a few minutes before the Rocket modem indicated that the signal was too weak, and we lost the stream. We were tracking using Iridium, and we noticed that each time we would get a new update on the balloon location, and the tracker adjusted accordingly, the strength would jump back up, and sometimes we could begin streaming again.
Could this problem be solved by increasing the rate at which we update our tracker with a new balloon location (either through faster Iridium updates or another system)? Or are we having another issue?
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Post by Skylar MSGC on Jun 27, 2016 11:01:58 GMT -7
Hey Austin,
You could increase your connection time by increasing the rate of updates sent to the satellite. That would allow for the tracking system to follow the balloon a little better.
The Rocket Dish has a narrow beam width and at far range targets it needs to be precisely on to get best signal and will fall off quickly otherwise.
Also, We had one member here that was working on getting a prediction subroutine to anticipate where the balloon would be based on previous packets. The problem was that as the balloon rose up the wind at that altitude would be blowing a different direction than the lower levels, or vice-versa on decent and the balloon would not go the direction the prediction subroutine would predict. I think a prediction subroutine could still be possible if the program took into the different wind directions at different altitudes.
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Post by David MSGC on Jul 2, 2016 9:12:24 GMT -7
Increasing the Iridium update rate might make a difference but a lot depends on how fast the balloon is moving relative to the antenna. If is is moving away or towards the antenna then there would be a lower rate of change. If the balloon is moving left to right relative to the antenna then the rate of change is higher. If there is a higher rate of change then increasing the update rate may help other wise I think the increase in update rates would not make a noticeable change in signal/reception. It also depends on how quickly the Iridium network is forwarding packets.
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Post by leviw on Aug 5, 2016 8:46:17 GMT -7
If the video system was sending gps coordinates over the network link, you would have a constant location for the balloon without guessing with an algorithm.
The irridium system seems like a great way to originally find it, and after it hits the ground. But using the in-flight network connection seems like it would be a lot better while the balloon is in the air.
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