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Review Article

HabPi: An Open Source Extensible Framework for High Altitude Balloon Data Collection

Author
  • Robert Lowe (Maryville College)

Abstract

One of the obstacles facing beginning high altitude balloonists is the cost of the myriad sensors required to acquire usable data. In addition to this problem, aligning sensor data after a flight can prove tricky. Finally, there is a harsh reality we all face. Trees and other tall structures pose a real risk to the recovery of any HAB payload. HabPi is an open source project which attempts to address these problems. This is a sensor array which is based on a Raspberry Pi, a Sense HAT, and several one-wire sensors. The sensors are all synchronized, so data registration is not a problem. HabPi also acts as a wifi access point which makes data retrieval possible even when the stack is trapped in a tree (or is otherwise inaccessible). HabPi is a simple extensible framework which allows users to add additional experiments beyond the default setup. The default setup provides temperature, pressure, magnetometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, and video imaging all for less than $200.00.

Keywords: Raspberry Pi, payload sensors

How to Cite:

Lowe, R., (2021) “HabPi: An Open Source Extensible Framework for High Altitude Balloon Data Collection”, Journal of High Altitude Ballooning 1(1).

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Published on
2021-08-09

Peer Reviewed