Armadeus

Armadeus small processor boards

Integration board

The Armadeus board has two big connectors (Hirose 120 pin FX8) and need to be plugged on a main board through these two connectors to communicate with the outside world, and more simply, with electrical power. Armadeus developed a few development boards. They include lots of input/output capabilities, power management, and so on.

For our goal, we need to develop a new main board, with a reduced size and weight compared to the Armadeus' development board, and with only the needed external connectors and components. On this page, we make the list of those needed connectors and design constraints.

Power supply

The dev board embeds three converters and regulators, for 1.8V, 3.3V and 5V.

Real-time clock

The RTC device is used to keep track of the time in case of power interruption or reboot. The DevFull board from Armadeus embeds one, the Maxim DS1374. It uses the I²C bus and has an internal temperature-compensated oscillator. Datasheet is uploaded here.

SD card

We might need an SD card for massive storage of sensor and flight information. The default is 256MB on the APF27 processor board.

ADC

An ADC may be needed if analogic sensors are used. On the Armadeus DevFull board, they use the MAX1027 component.

Camera module

Camera modules can't be directly connected to APF signals, but need a breakout board. Moreover, since they need to be put in a different place than the processing board, they need a connector on the main board.

FPGA connectors for servo PWM

If we chose servo as the actuators for the airplane ailerons, we will need a PWM signal to control them. The FPGA of Armadeus boards is able to control lots of them as explained here, but we need to add the connectors to the main board.