Aerobrakes — Lesson 7: Algorithm Implementation — Responsive

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The third and final algorithm in this block completes the set the team will compare head-to-head starting in Lesson 8.

Note

Lessons 5, 6, and 7 are one combined three-session block covering Bang-Bang, PID, and Responsive control. They share the same underlying activity structure and metrics table; each session's page here highlights that week's specific algorithm.

Objective

implement, tune, and evaluate the Responsive controller against the OpenRocket benchmark from Lesson 2.

Session Activities — Responsive

Implement the responsive controller in the plugin. Where bang-bang only asks “should I add drag” and PID asks “how far off am I and how hard should I correct,” a responsive approach reacts more directly and immediately to the current predicted error each frame. Tune against clean, noise-free simulated data first, matching the same discipline used for the previous two algorithms.

Metrics

Complete the shared comparison table from Lessons 5 and 6 with this algorithm's altitude error, overshoot magnitude, actuator cycle count, and settling time. With all three algorithms now logged, the team has everything it needs going into Lesson 8's noisy-data testing and Lesson 9's final comparative analysis.

Maps to milestone P1-M4.