UVic Rocketry Upgrades Data Acquisition System

UVic Rocketry Upgrades Data Acquisition System - LabJack

The UVic Rocketry Team is a student-led group at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) that designs and builds competitive sounding rockets. UVic participates the annual Spaceport America Cup (SA Cup), located at the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport located in southern New Mexico, United States.

At the SA Cup 2016, the team earned 3rd place out of 40 teams in the Basic category. Additionally, the team placed 1st in the Space Dynamic Laboratory (SDL) Payload Challenge, launching a 4.54 kg (10 lb) payload to 3.57 km (11,702 ft) above ground level. At the SA Cup 2018, they also received an honorable mention in the SDL Payload Challenge. Preparations are currently underway to compete at the SA Cup 2020.

From Ben Klammer-UVic Rocketry Team Member:


Ben Klammer using LabJack U6-Pro for collecting sensor data in Labview and Stream UD

"Most of our recent work has been on integrating the LabJack DAQ with our existing LabVIEW data acquisition code. Before using the LabJack U6-PRO in our instrumentation setup, we were using an Arduino Mega to acquire data at rates around 20-25 Hz, which was not ideal for our analysis. Now we are using the U6-PRO in stream mode to sample from nine analog input channels at rates of around 1000 Hz. This is a huge improvement that will help us gather much more detailed data in our cold flow and hot fire tests.


U6-Pro Close Up with Labview VI and U6 Dashboard Dashboard

"We are using the LabJack U6-PRO that you sent us to record the data from our cold flow tests for our hybrid rocket development. Cold flow tests are crucial for characterizing the flow rates and atomization properties of our oxidizer injector, which is arguably the most important part of a hybrid rocket. I've attached a few images of our instrumentation setup for the cold flow we performed this Saturday.


U6-Pro ready for cold flow testing

"The instrumentation worked well, but unfortunately we had some leaks in our feed system that prevented us from doing a full cold flow test.

"We will be doing another cold flow test next week once final exams are finished to help characterize our injector. We will be using our test data to determine the discharge coefficient of our injector, which allows us to predict the performance of our engine in a hot fire test. Additionally, we will be monitoring the pressure drop in our feed system, which will help us better design our flight engine feed system."

 

Good luck Ben & UVic Rocketry Team, onward and upward!

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