Under construction

Recovery System

Fault-tolerant recovery avionics with triple-MCU voting and ten high-current deployment channels

Design Responsible Engineer

AvionicsEmbedded SystemsPower ElectronicsHigh Current

Schematic

Exported PDF/SVG sheets.

Layout

Copper layer inspector.

3D Model

STEP board preview.

Notes

Design wiki and bring-up notes.

Case Study

Engineering Summary

10

Deployment Channels

3

Independent MCU Domains

300 W

Simultaneous Load Step

2

Independent Power Trees

A six-layer mixed-signal recovery controller for fault-tolerant rocket parachute deployment. The board combines dual input power paths, four regulated power stages, three independent STM32 control domains, discrete median-voting logic, 4x redundant hardware safing, inertial and environmental sensing, and ten 24 V ignition channels.

Design Focus

  • Preserve fault independence across redundant power, compute, and deployment paths
  • Minimize high di/dt loop area through the ignition switches, connectors, and return paths
  • Isolate low-voltage sensing and voting logic from high-current deployment circuitry
  • Maintain deterministic hardware inhibition through RBF, ESTOP, abort, and software-controlled enables
  • Keep power-distribution impedance low enough to support simultaneous deployment without resetting control electronics

This case study is under construction while final lab images and measurement evidence are prepared for public release.

Layers
6
Stackup
Six copper-layer mixed-signal avionics PCB with high-current recovery-driver routing and separated logic/power regions
Tools
Altium, Oscilloscope, Electronic Load, Bench Supply
Key Parts
Triple STM32 control architecture, Discrete median-voting logic, Dual protected input power paths, 48 V to 24 V buck converters, 3.3 V buck converters, 10 constant-current ignition drivers, 3x IMU, barometer, and magnetometer interfaces, Hardware RBF, ESTOP, and abort paths