NDVI Mapping

Flight telemetry acquisition and multi-sensor environmental monitoring system built for the NASA TechRise / WorldView payload platform.

Overview

NDVI Mapping is an embedded data acquisition system designed to collect, process, and store real-time flight and environmental measurements during a payload mission.

The system integrates WorldView flight telemetry with multiple external sensors to record GPS data, atmospheric conditions, spectral measurements, illumination levels, and inertial motion. All measurements are logged to an onboard SD card in a structured CSV format for post-flight analysis.

The payload automatically tracks flight phases, monitors sensor availability, handles hardware failures gracefully, and provides visual status feedback through onboard LEDs.

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Features

• 📡 Real-time WorldView telemetry collection

  • GPS position
  • Altitude
  • Velocity
  • Heading
  • Pressure
  • Temperature
  • Flight status

• 🌎 Environmental sensing

  • Ambient light intensity
  • Infrared radiation
  • Visible light
  • Full-spectrum measurements
  • Temperature
  • Relative humidity
  • Atmospheric pressure
  • Estimated altitude

• 🌈 Spectral analysis

  • AS7343 11-channel spectral sensor
  • F1-F8 visible spectrum channels
  • NIR measurements
  • Configurable gain and integration settings

• 🛰️ Motion tracking

  • 3-axis acceleration
  • 3-axis gyroscope
  • IMU temperature

• 💾 Reliable onboard storage

  • CSV telemetry logging
  • SD card support
  • Automatic error logging

• 🛡️ Fault-tolerant initialization

  • Individual sensor availability checks
  • Continues operation if sensors fail
  • Missing sensor values recorded as "N/A"

Hardware Components

Component	Purpose
WorldView Telemetry Module	Flight telemetry and GPS data
SD Card Module	Data storage
TSL2591	High-resolution ambient light sensing
BME280	Temperature, humidity, and pressure sensing
AS7343	Spectral analysis
MPU6050	Acceleration and gyroscope measurements
Microcontroller	Payload processing and control

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Flight Status Indicators

Neopixel Status

The onboard Neopixel indicates current mission state:

Status	Color
Initializing	Yellow
Launching	Green
Floating	Cyan
Terminating	Blue
Unknown	Gray

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GO LED Behavior

The GO LED indicates payload readiness and telemetry streaming:

Condition	LED Pattern
PBF inserted, no streaming	5 seconds ON / 5 seconds OFF
PBF removed, no streaming	1 second ON / 1 second OFF
PBF inserted, streaming	3 seconds ON / 3 seconds OFF
PBF removed, streaming	Solid ON

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Data Collection

The payload records telemetry once every second and stores measurements in: /sd/WORLD_15.txt

The output file contains 39 data fields:

Field	Description
Flight Phase	Current mission state
Elapsed Time	Time since previous sample
Packets	Number of telemetry packets received
WV Time	WorldView timestamp
WV Latitude	GPS latitude
WV Longitude	GPS longitude
WV Altitude	GPS altitude
WV Speed	Ground speed
WV Heading	Direction of travel
WV Velocity Down	Vertical velocity
WV Pressure	Telemetry pressure
WV Temperature	Telemetry temperature
Lux	Ambient light intensity
IR	Infrared light
Visible	Visible light
Full Spectrum	Total spectrum intensity
BME Temp	Environmental temperature
BME Humidity	Relative humidity
BME Pressure	Atmospheric pressure
BME Altitude	Calculated altitude
AS7343 Channels	Spectral measurements
Acceleration	X/Y/Z acceleration
Gyroscope	X/Y/Z rotational velocity
MPU Temperature	IMU temperature

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Software Architecture

Initialization

At startup, the system:

1. Mounts the SD card.
2. Initializes the I2C communication bus.
3. Detects connected sensors.
4. Configures sensor parameters.
5. Begins telemetry collection.

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Main Data Loop

During flight:

1. WorldView telemetry is continuously updated.
2. Flight phase changes are detected.
3. Sensor readings are collected every second.
4. Data is formatted into CSV format.
5. Measurements are written to the SD card.