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The rear-right motor failed in both flights that were performed. The logs from the flight controller were analyzed, and various qualitative and quantitative data was used to determine potential problems and action items to fix those issues. Firstly, a graph showing the throttle commands from the flight controller to each of the motors is shown below:
// SHOW GRAPHS HERE
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As can be seen, the throttles commanded from Ardupilot were at 100%, but the drone was still losing altitude. This was concurred by a visible dip in the rear left motor, implying that the motor stopped working. The problem was deemed to not be because of the motor controller, as the system is Additionally, the motor was seen to be noticeably warmer once it failed, leading to a conclusion that the problem issue was due to the overheating of the motor.
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Furthermore, the datasheets for the quad motors were examined and it was seen that the motors were not optimized for continuous operation. Because they are VTOL dronesmotors, they are designed to be used at very high throttle for short periods of time before the aircraft transitions to fixed-wing operation. This was further bolstered by the lack of ventilation on the motors. Hence, it was determined that the motors will have to be changed to other motors with smaller voltage requirements that were brought with the team.
Because the new motors, 7T-Motor’s Motor's MN5008 KV:340, run most effectively off a 6S architecture, the harnessing was also changed from 12S to 6S and thus, two 6S batteries were used in parallel to maximize flight time.
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The approach taken by WARG on Task 2 was to manually determine routes that were not only close to the starting location, but also had an overall short distance to travel. Although an algorithm modelled around the travelling traveling salesman problem was designed and tested, it was made to maximize revenue, and not minimize distance. Ultimately, the former was deemed too risky, and thus, the autonomy points for waypoint way-point generation were not used. The chosen routes, in order, are shown in the diagram
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