# CanSat telemetry ground station (AIAA competition)

> A JavaFX ground station that receives 100-byte telemetry packets over a serial link, checks their start and end markers, shows altitude, heading and attitude on flight instruments, and logs every session to CSV — plus the logs of captive tests on a restrained stand.

- URL: https://mojtabaamini.com/projects/cansat-ground-station-en
- Language: en
- Author: Mojtaba Amini, AI Software Engineer (Verona, Italy)
- Details: 2018 · Sharif University · CanSat

- **Role**: Ground-station software developer
- **Period**: 2018
- **Context**: Tehran, IR · AIAA CanSat competition project
- **Technology**: Java · JavaFX · jSerialComm · Serial telemetry · CSV logging

## The packet

Fixed 100-byte packets opening with 201 and closing with 254, carrying team ID, mission time, packet counter, altitude, pressure, temperature, battery voltage, GPS time, position, altitude and satellites, pitch, roll, blade spin rate and camera direction.

## The ground station

A JavaFX application that listens on the serial port with jSerialComm, parses each packet and drives an altimeter, a compass and an artificial horizon, writing every session to a timestamped CSV file before display.

## Captive tests

The session logs of captive tests record accelerometers and gyroscopes, four load cells, airspeed, angle of attack and sideslip, pressure altitude and control-surface positions, the raw material for checking the vehicle before flight.

## Further reading

- [Telemetry for a CanSat: ground station, packets and checksums](https://mojtabaamini.com/writing/cansat-telemetry-en) (Article · Sep 2026): In 2018 I wrote the telemetry ground station for a CanSat project for the AIAA competition: serial packets with checksums, flight instruments in JavaFX and a log file for every session. What I would do the same, and what not.

Related service

- [Embedded systems, IoT and data acquisition](https://mojtabaamini.com/services/embedded-iot): C/C++ firmware, sensors, CAN bus and telemetry, up to AI models on the collected data.

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