WINGS is the UMN Rocket Team's proprietary software that's used for data analysis during and after rocket launches. I joined the team at the start of my junior year (September 2024), and have since helped contribute to building the software's robust memory and type safe back-end using Rust and the front-end using TypeScript. The software supports both live telemetry reception through a USB port and also playback of data from previous launches through different file formats. The front-end can display processed data for visualization with its graph, indicator light, and readout displays.
Table of Contents
Personal Contributions
Indicator Lights
My first major contribution was creating the boolean indicator light display for the front-end. This included creating both the settings modal and the display itself. The boolean indicator lights help users monitor variables by using display lights to indicate whether the incoming data satisfies the specified inequalities or not. The lights turn green when the conditions are met, or turn red otherwise.
Indicator lights changing colors based on incoming data
Altus Metrum Checksum
In my first back-end project, I added checksum calculations to detect accidental changes/errors in incoming telemetry data in our Altus Metrum/AltOS file handler. The rocket team uses Altus Metrum products like the TeleMetrum altimeter with GPS and RF telemetry link and the TeleDongle which is used on the ground station to interact with the rockets. By adding checksum calculations for AltOS packets, I was able to filter out bad packets sent using these products and remarkably enhance the display of rocket data. This WINGS feature works for both live data sent from the TeleMetrum and data saved to a file.
Graph displaying data after checksum calculations
Other Contributions
Other contributions I've made to the project include improving the functionality and styling of all of the settings modals for the
displays, adding help text/documentation throughout to improve software ease-of-use, conducting end-to-end testing to ensure implemented
features work, and other various small front-end improvements. One of the most rewarding aspects of working on this project has been
being able to develop software within a collaborate, team environment.
Currently, I'm creating new graphs that would be used for realtime
display of time-series data. The new graphs will work by displaying new data on the right while pushing out old data to the left,
creating a sliding window effect.
Technologies Used
Front End
- TypeScript
- SolidJS as a reactive JS library
- Tailwind CSS for styling
- Tauri software framework
Back End
- Rust
- Tauri software framework