ValidatedMeasured

Vespula Avionics Module

Redesign and validation of a 48 V flight engine controller for valve actuation, ignition, and sensor acquisition

Revision Responsible Engineer

AvionicsEmbedded SystemsPower Electronics

Layout

Look through the copper layers and routing.

3D Model

Spin around the board model in 3D.

Design Notes

The reasoning, bring-up, bugs, and test results behind the board.

Project overview

What I worked on

48 V

Vehicle Bus

15+

Pins Remapped

~22 mA target

Protected Sensors

6 layers

Stackup

A six-layer flight engine controller on the 48 V avionics bus. I inherited this board rather than designing it from scratch, and my revision work focused on the broken interfaces: BeagleBone pin mapping, connector/control/ADC-related routing, bring-up, integration, and validation.

This page sticks to the work I actually owned on Rev 4: pin remapping, interface/routing changes, bring-up, integration, and validation. The power, igniter, and ADC circuits themselves were inherited.

Hardware & test evidence

Photos, measurements, and validation

Assembled Flight SAM hardware

Hardware

Assembled Flight SAM hardware

Clean photo of the corrected Rev 4 Flight SAM after the interface/routing revision.

Flight SAM PCB implementation

PCB Layout

Flight SAM PCB implementation

Full-board Altium view of Rev 4, including the BeagleBone, connector, and ADC-related routing changes I made.

Powered vehicle integration

Integration

Powered vehicle integration

Rev 4 powered up in the real propulsion-avionics stack during integration.

Propulsion sensor integration

Sensors

Propulsion sensor integration

One of the representative propulsion-sensor installations connected through the Flight SAM.

Revision 3D view

PCB

Revision 3D view

Altium 3D view of the revised Flight SAM, useful for seeing connector placement and the physical board organization around the interface changes.

Test history

Bring-up, validation, and revisions

Corrected-revision bring-up

Verify that the revised controller boots reliably, acquires valid sensor data, and drives engine-control outputs predictably.

Pass
Setup
Staged checks of regulated rails, controller boot behavior, ADC polarity/scaling, sensor interfaces, valve outputs, and igniter operation.
Expected
Stable startup, valid sensor acquisition, and repeatable actuation behavior.
Measured / observed
The corrected revision restored reliable controller startup, valid sensor acquisition, and repeatable valve and igniter behavior.

Inherited design

Designed

Audit identified pin-mapping, boot-state, ADC-polarity, and power-converter issues that prevented reliable operation.

Corrected revision

Validated

Electrical and PCB changes were brought up through staged subsystem testing and returned the controller to operational use.

Design deep dives

A closer look

Revision

48 V Bus

Revision Architecture

How I audited the inherited pin map and interfaces, figured out which assumptions disagreed across hardware/firmware, and carried the fixes into the PCB.

Power

Valves / Igniters

Actuation and Ignition

How I validated the inherited valve and igniter paths after the revision without claiming the original actuation/power design as mine.

Sensors

RTD / PT

Sensor Layout and Validation

How I fixed ADC-related mapping/routing issues and then checked that the sensor paths still behaved correctly in the integrated system.

Layers
6
Stackup
1SIG1
2GND1
3SIG2
4PWR
5GND2
6SIG3
Tools
Altium · Oscilloscope · Bench Supply