firmware Directory Reference

Directory dependency graph for firmware:

Directories
	Actuator_Board
	ADC_Testing
	Avionics_State_Machine_Drafts
	Burn_ID
	common
	DAN-E Avionics
	DAQv1_FA25
	Encoder_Board
	Environmental Tracker
	Ethernet OTA Testing
	Ethernet Testing
	Flight_Computer
	Hotfire_Code
	IC_Testing
	LC_Board
	libraries
	Motor
	Multi_Board_Comms_Testing
	Multi_Board_Comms_Testing_Secondary
	PT_Board
	RTD_Board
	Stacklight Driver
	State Machine
	test_guis
	tools

Detailed Description

Firmware

The STM32 flight-computer scaffold lives in Core/ on the flight-computer branch. Its portable self-test interface and host tests are documented in Core/README.md. The ESP32 build instructions below do not build or validate that target.

ESP32 firmware for every avionics board in the Diablo rocket — the code that reads the sensors, talks to the ground DAQ server over Ethernet, and runs the on-board abort logic during a hotfire. This directory is a subtree of calstar/DiabloAvionics, vendored into the STAR monorepo.

Built with PlatformIO; the boards are ESP32-S3 (and a few C6/C3) running the Arduino framework.

Overview

Each board type runs a small state machine: it boots, self-tests its ADC and sensors, waits for the server to send its configuration, then streams sensor data and exchanges heartbeats. If it loses the server's heartbeat it can abort autonomously. The packets it sends and receives are defined once, in lib/DAQv2-Comms (reached here via the symlink libraries/DAQv2-Comms), so the firmware and the daq-server always agree on the wire format.

The canonical flight code lives under Hotfire_Code/. Everything else is either a shared library, a bench-test sketch, a calibration tool, or archived hardware.

Directory structure

firmware/
├── Hotfire_Code/              # flight firmware (canonical)
│   ├── PT_Hotfire/            #   pressure transducer board
│   ├── TC_Hotfire/            #   thermocouple board
│   ├── RTD_Hotfire/           #   RTD (temperature) board
│   ├── LC_Hotfire/            #   load cell board
│   ├── Actuator_Hotfire/      #   actuator/valve driver board
│   ├── ProtoEncoder/          #   encoder board prototype
│   ├── common/                #   shared flight headers (hotfire_config.h,
│   │                          #     SensorHotfireCore.h, firmware_hash.h, OTA)
│   └── Hotfire_Tests/         #   Unity unit tests (run on host, `-e native`)
├── common/                    # board pin maps + ADC mappings (sense/actuator)
├── libraries/                 # Arduino libraries (see "Libraries" below)
│   └── DAQv2-Comms -> ../../lib/DAQv2-Comms   # symlink to the wire protocol
├── platformio-common.ini      # shared PlatformIO env bases (esp32s3_base, ...)
├── ADC_Testing/               # standalone ADC bring-up / characterization sketches
├── Ethernet OTA Testing/      # over-the-air update validation
├── LC_Board/                  # load-cell calibration GUI + sketches
├── test_guis/                 # Python GUIs for bench-testing boards over the network
└── Archive/                   # deprecated boards & old DAQ versions — not built

Top-level directories like PT_Board/, RTD_Board/, Encoder_Board/, and the *_Testing/ trees are older bring-up code kept for reference. New flight work goes in Hotfire_Code/.

Libraries

libraries/ holds the Arduino libraries each board links against:

Library	Origin	Notes
DAQv2-Comms	STAR (symlink)	wire protocol — see lib/DAQv2-Comms
EthernetHandler	STAR	W5500 Ethernet setup/config helper
STAR_MCP3201	STAR	MCP3201 SPI ADC driver
STAR_ISM330DH	STAR fork of SparkFun	IMU driver + STAR wake-up extensions
STAR_LIS3DH	Adafruit (upstream)	accelerometer driver, unmodified
ads126X	upstream (Molorius)	ADS126x precision ADC driver

The STAR forks and upstream libraries keep their own licenses; don't reformat or "clean up" the vendored ones.

Build, test, flash

PlatformIO reads each project's platformio.ini. The shared environment bases (board, platform, build flags) live in platformio-common.ini.

Install PlatformIO once:

pip3 install platformio --user      # provides the `pio` CLI

Host unit tests (fast, no hardware):

cd Hotfire_Code/Hotfire_Tests
pio test -e native

Covers the sensor/actuator state machines, ADS126X self-test, DAQv2-Comms packet round-trips, and sensor data collection.

Compile-check / build a flight project:

cd Hotfire_Code/PT_Hotfire
pio run                              # build
pio run -t upload                    # flash over USB
pio device monitor -b 115200         # serial monitor

Each flight board sets its identity (BOARD_ID) at compile time via its platformio.ini / common/hotfire_config.h; two boards must not share an ID (they would collide on the same static IP). Updates can also be pushed over Ethernet — see Ethernet OTA Testing/.

Documentation

• Hotfire_Code/common/FIRMWARE_HASH_VERIFICATION.md — firmware SHA-256 hash verification (also reported in board heartbeats)
• Ethernet OTA Testing/README.md — OTA firmware update workflow
• test_guis/README.md — Python bench-test GUIs
• LC_Board/LC_Calibration/LC_Calibration_Gui/README.md — load-cell calibration GUI
• ADC_Testing/ — ADC bring-up and noise-characterization sketches
• lib/DAQv2-Comms — the wire protocol both this firmware and the DAQ server speak