Page 116 - Abstract book - TJSSF-2020

Thailand – Japan Student Science Fair 2020 (TJ-SSF 2020)
“Seeding Innovations through Fostering Thailand – Japan Youth Friendship”

Elucidation of the Phenomenon Modifying the CanSat’s Attitude
Focusing on Flight Experiments

KUBO Koki
1
Advisors: Akira Narita , Misato Kosuge
1
1

Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology
1

Abstract
The can-sized simulated satellite “CanSat” has various sensors and mission equipment and executes
pre-designed missions by us autonomously during descent with a parachute. Typically, CanSats during
descent have the movement called Conical Pendulum Movement (CPM) in which a CanSat body rotates
on the circular path of the conical pendulum with a parachute as its apex (CPM rotation), and the CPM
shakes the CanSat body which inhibits cameras or mission equipment. Therefore, eliminating the CPM
and stabilizing CanSat’s attitude along the vertical axis during descent are one of the focuses to improve
CanSats. An interesting phenomenon referred to as “CPM-Convergence” which coincidently rotates the
propeller attached along the body’s axis inside the CanSat was found by us in 2015. In the flight
experiment of “Oshima 2016”, the soda can sized CanSat in which we obtained sensor data for
analyzing the CPM-Convergence and a self-built model rocket as its carrier were designed by us, and
used for these experiments. By analyzing the results of the data from the Oshima 2016, the CPM-
Convergence was found to be caused by the gyroscopic effect. The whole CanSat turns into a rigid
body in which the gyroscopic effect functions because the string connected between the parachute and
the body is wound to the maximum tightness by the propeller’s rotation and forms a whole rigid
CanSat’s rotation axis. The precession is caused by the gyroscopic effect offsetting the CPM
rotation. In this paper, we present the CPM-Convergence focusing on flight experiments and introduce
the development of our CanSat and model rocket as scientific instruments.

Keywords: simulated satellite, conical pendulum movement convergence (CPM-Convergence),
gyroscopic effect, precession

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