Parachute Control System of Sounding Rocket Based on Multi-Sensor Fusion

In this paper, a method for controlling the parachute opening device of a small sounding rocket through a multi-sensor fusion algorithm is proposed. This method uses IMU, airspeed tube and GNSS to obtain acceleration, velocity and position information respectively. After processing the three sets of data, the corresponding speed data is obtained, and the more accurate speed data is obtained through the Kalman filter algorithm. The vertical speed is used as the basis for the parachute-opening judgment condition and the timing of parachute-opening. Through simulation and experimental results, this method of parachute control of the sounding rocket proved to be very effective. This method can significantly reduce the accuracy requirements for the sounding rocket sensors, and obtain relatively high-precision results through the fusion processing of data collected by multiple low-precision sensors. This method can be used in the parachute control system of low-cost sounding rockets, which is of great significance for reducing the cost of small sounding rockets and promoting commercial applications.