A Structured Shield-to-PCB Development Flow for COTS Embedded Systems in Aerospace Environments

This work proposes and experimentally validates a structured development flow from rapid prototyping to printed circuit board (PCB) implementation for embedded systems operating in constrained environments. The approach is applied to a battery pack monitoring system for sounding rockets, and it is responsible for acquiring voltage, current, and temperature data and transmitting telemetry via an RS-422 interface at 38.4 kbps. The methodology starts with the integration of commercially available modules and evolves to a custom PCB while preserving the validated functional architecture. Experimental validation was conducted through bench and tri-axial vibration tests, demonstrating consistent system performance in sensing, processing, and telemetry, with no observed signal degradation or discontinuities. The results confirm that the proposed approach preserves system functionality and reduces development uncertainty, while providing a clear framework for design stages, validation procedures, and component selection. Furthermore, the findings support the use of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components in non-critical applications when appropriate validation strategies are applied, while emphasizing the need for additional qualification for critical use cases. The development flow is explicitly designed to support TRL progression, such that the evidence accumulated at each stage provides the traceability required for future qualification under critical classification.