I am working with a university rocket team (in USA) to carry a drone inside of a 6 inch diameter rocket to 9,000 ft AGL and then eject to land a golf ball on a target located 100 ft away from the launch site. I cannot seem to find a prebuilt <6" drone with these capabilities , but if you know of one please let me know.
The drone cannot have spring loaded or otherwise expanding arms because in previous years, spring loaded expanding joints have ripped apart upon ejection from the rocket. Therefore we believe it is necessary for our launch vehicle to be one solid frame.
I was told by a friend to look into a 5" racing drone and then adding a flight control system. My team purchased this (mRo Pixhawk 2.4.6 Cool Kit (Limited Edition)) setup from mrobotics last year, and although a crash broke the main pixhawk board, all of the components still work. Would this work or do we need to purchase a smaller set? The way I understand it, racing kits come with preinstalled motors. My worry is that we won’t be able to physically fit the pixhawk and components on such a small frame along with a battery and that the motors might not be able to carry the extra weight.
Tldr; I am punching a drone out of a rocket at around 9,000 feet. The drone would be turned on while on the ground for calibration and then stay on while maintaining its calibration inside the rocket. It will fall until a tbd metric is reached (strong gps connection, gyroscopic stability, or something else?) while attached to a parachute (upside down to eliminate reverse rotation) at which point the parachute will be released and the drone will fly to specified gps coordinates. I need to know
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Is it possible to program a pixhawk to do that?
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Would it be necessary to have a long range telemetry link (like http://store.jdrones.com/jD_RD900Plus_Telemetry_Bundle_p/rf900set02.htm but preferably cheaper)? The thinking being we could then read data coming from pixhawk while it is falling and not have to worry with an autonomous parachute release.
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If anyone knows a 5" frame/motor combo that has enough power for this.
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If anyone with experience coding pixhawk would be able to help/guide me to get this done.
Thank you for your time and I greatly appreciate any help or advice you can provide me with.
Happy new year!
Adam