Aerobrakes — Lesson 14: Porting Control Algorithm to C

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The mechanism from Lesson 13 needs a real controller running it — and that controller has to run in C on embedded hardware, not Python in a simulation.

Objective: port the algorithm chosen back in Lesson 9 from Python to C for the embedded flight controller.

Session Activities

Work through a side-by-side comparison of the Python logic versus the C target: fixed-point versus floating-point math, real memory constraints, and interrupt-driven execution versus the simulation-step execution the algorithm was originally written for. Then unit-test the ported algorithm against the same noisy and edge cases from Lesson 8, matching results within a defined tolerance before moving on.

Checkpoint

This is the steepest skill jump in the entire project. Watch the AI-use logs closely here against the project's standing benchmark: AI can be used at a peer level to work through problems, but not to write the port for you, and you shouldn't need to rely on it more than about 20–25% of the time.

Maps to milestone P3-M2.