The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book - Projects_Book_v4

raspberrypi.org/magpi The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book 21

PEGASUS AND THE NORTH AMERICAN EAGLE Projects

High-speed Pi
While North American Eagle is
gunning for the speed record, the
Pegasus Mission behind it usually
has its eyes to the sky.
“Pegasus Mission uses a high-
altitude balloon as a delivery

system to carry a payload,”
reveals Matt Long, a Microsoft
cloud solution architect.
The balloon is “packed with
meteorological sensors to stream
telemetry and control flight
operations in real time.”
It’s this expertise in real-time
communication that attracted
Matt and Mark Nichols (also

a Microsoft cloud solutions

architect) to the North American

Eagle project. “We asked to join

the North American Eagle team,”

Mark tells us.

The Pegasus Mission balloon

“provides a rich and interesting

experience for users viewing

the flight as it happens,”

Mark explains. “We started with

the idea that the Pegasus team

could provide a real-time view

of what was happening with the

vehicle to a global audience.”

“For this project I built a custom

device that was installed in the

cockpit of the vehicle,” reveals

The North American Eagle

started life as a Lockheed

F-104 Starfighter

Mark. That device was a Raspberry

Pi 3 running Windows 10 IoT

Core. The software was written

in C# as a Universal Windows

Platform application.

“Microsoft has been a partner

supporting North American Eagle

for quite a while,” says Mark.

“Volunteers got together to build

this hardware, software, cloud,

mobile, and web app capability.”

The main aim of the Raspberry

Pi was to analyse the car during its

test run. “It gathered real-time

sensor data,” says Mark. GPS,

atmospheric, acceleration, and

sound level data was gathered by

the Raspberry Pi and sent to the

Microsoft cloud.

The Pegasus team could

“evaluate the benefits of

real-time data reporting and

analysis in combination with the

goals of the North American Eagle

team,” he explains.

The Raspberry Pi is placed

inside the cockpit, right

behind the driver’s head

The North American Eagle

is a Lockheed F-104 jet

with its wings removed

Aluminium wheels are

attached to the jet,

turning it into a car