Answer 6—Yes, a simple beacon is sufficient for the precision tracking of a model rocket if multiple receivers are used. The receivers need to be capable of correlating the reception of the beacon signal quite accurately in the time domain. The post-processing of the received signals will reveal the position changes of the beacon transmitter relative to the receivers before and during the flight.

Think of it as an inverse GPS system—instead of many transmitters (satellites) and one receiver, you have one transmitter and many receivers. As long as you have at least four receivers, the accuracy of the timebase in the rocket isn’t critical; it falls out as one of the unknowns when the equations are solved.

Contributor: David Tweed

Published October 2003