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titleCard 3: Houston obstacle avoidance

Test #1: Stab mode Lidar Verification

Procedure

Goals / Objectives

Knockoff criteria

  1. Takeoff and hover in STAB 1.5-2m AGL. Verify controls.

  • Verify pitch/roll/yaw directions are correct.

  • Verify that Gemini functionality is retained.

  • Verify that flight modes & flight time is correct.

  • Pitch/Roll/Yaw incorrect

    • land, flip in mission planner, re-start test

  • Drone de-stabilizes.

    • Land, evaluate tune, re-start test

  1. Translational movement @ slow speed towards vertical wall

  • Ensure that the proximity sensor is able to detect a wall.

  • contact with the wall

    • back-off and land. Evaluate prop health. Re-start if possible.

  • Loss of heading reference

    • back-off , re-establish, continue.

  1. Maintain desired distance from the wall while spinning heading vector 360

  • Ensure that proximity continues to track at all angles

  1. Approaches from front/side/rear ascending & descending.

  • Basic characterization of obstacle avoidance properties.

Test #2: Loit mode Obstacle Avoidance

Procedure

Goals / Objectives

Knockoff criteria

  1. Takeoff and hover in Loit mode 1.5-2m AGL. Verify controls.

  • Verify pitch/roll/yaw directions are correct.

  • Verify that Gemini functionality is retained.

  • Verify that flight modes & flight time is correct.

  • Pitch/Roll/Yaw incorrect

    • land, flip in mission planner, re-start test

  • Drone de-stabilizes.

    • Land, evaluate tune, re-start test

  1. Translational movement @ slow speed towards vertical wall

  • Ensure that the proximity sensor is able to detect a wall.

  • Ensure that the drone does not move closer nearer to the wall.

  • contact with the wall

    • back-off and land. Evaluate prop health. Re-start if possible.

  • Loss of heading reference

    • back-off , re-establish, continue.

  • Obstacle avoidance malfunction

    • Back-off, re-attempt.

    • If same behaviour, land and evaluate settings.

    • Continue test if possible

  • Loss of drone handling?

    • land if possible , dis-arm, re-attempt & slower speed.

  1. Maintain desired distance from the wall while spinning heading vector 360

  • Ensure that obstacle avoidance continues to track and function at all expected angles.

  1. Approaches from front/side/rear ascending & descending.

  • Ensure that obstacle avoidance continues to track & function at all expected angles.

Test #3: Auto Mission obstacle avoidance

Procedure

Goals / Objectives

Knockoff criteria

  1. Setup an auto mission which passes through an “obstacle”

  • Have a flight path.

  • Path doesn’t generate GG

  1. Set mission to AUTO, takeoff and fly!

  • Ensure obstacle avoidance continues to function!

  • drone does not avoid obstacle

    • Re-take control in stab. Back-away and attempt to re-start.

  • Drone de-stabilizes

    • Re-take control in stab. Back-away and attempt to re-start.

  1. Upon reaching end waypoint, RTL

  • Ensure obstacle avoidance functions in RTL

Necessary Preparation

Explain what capacity you need, what needs to be mounted, etc.

Mechanical

  •  Pegasus cleared to fly (mechanically)
    •  sensor mount ready
    •  Motors + frame rigid
  •  Houston cleared to fly (mechanically)
    •  sensor mount attached
    •  arms + plates rigid

Electrical

  •  Pegasus cleared to fly (electrically)
    •  harnessing secure
  •  Houston cleared to fly
    •  Harnessing secure
    •  ELRS RX’s secure.

Embedded Flight Software

...

  •  Opflow → Offsets correct, usage correct ? (EKF3?)
  •  Lidar → Offsets correct, usage correct? Height limits set?

...

  •  Failsafes configured (Radio, GCS, Battery, ETC?)
  •  360 Lidar → Configured, ground tested. Distances set properly?

...

Test #4: Gemini Range Houston

Procedure

Goals / Objectives

Knockoff criteria

  1. Takeoff and land close range

  • Have a flight path

  • Check short range behaviour

  • Strange error

  • Gemini not work

  1. Takeoff and fly further until (1) no longer feels safe, (2) something funny happens

  • Have a flight path

  • Check long range behavior

''

Necessary Preparation

Explain what capacity you need, what needs to be mounted, etc.

Mechanical

  •  Pegasus cleared to fly (mechanically)
    •  sensor mount ready
    •  Motors + frame rigid
  •  Houston cleared to fly (mechanically)
    •  sensor mount attached
    •  arms + plates rigid

Electrical

  •  Pegasus cleared to fly (electrically)
    •  harnessing secure
  •  Houston cleared to fly
    •  Harnessing secure
    •  ELRS RX’s secure.

Embedded Flight Software

  •  Pegasus Ardupilot Configuration ready
    •  Opflow → Offsets correct, usage correct ? (EKF3?)
    •  Lidar → Offsets correct, usage correct? Height limits set?
  •  Houston Ardupilot Configuration ready
    •  Failsafes configured (Radio, GCS, Battery, ETC?)
    •  360 Lidar → Configured, ground tested. Distances set properly?
  •  Test area SME available
    •  Test procedure is clear → Houston & Pegasus
    •  Possible deviations from test understood and considered → Houston & Pegasus
  •  Software ground tested
    •  Ground tests complete on all airframes (on battery over telemetry)
  •  Tracking Antenna
    •  Tested ? SME ready?
  •  ELRS / Radio management correct.
    •  ELRS rx’s on houston & pegasus. → Clear unique models.
    •  ELRS Airport on houston → Verify functioning.
    •  RFD900x on Pegasus → Verify functioning
    •  ELRS Trainer → Verify functioning

...

Name

Phone # (opt)

Sub-team

Driving (question)

Role

Anthony Luo

Director

Y - 5pass SUV

Megan Spee

Director

5-person liftback

Nathan Green

Mechanical

3-277 Dodge Grand Caravan

Ryan Chan

Mechanical

Sam Zhang

EFS

Tim Gu

EFS

Georgia Vachon Westerlund

Ops

Yuchen Lin

EFS

...

Note

This section and remaining to be filled out by FTC and Flightline Team

...

https://uofwaterloo-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/uwarg_uwaterloo_ca/EnY_jjQ-qNxBvzZG8dXqsmcBWxHpaoz841fN5Z3HShZSRA?e=zyI504

Timeline Recap

9:05 - brief

1000 - Left the bay

1015- Arrived Wrest RC

1032 - Pegasus Takeoffs [50.BIN]

1042 - Pegasus GPS test [

1047 - Pegasus OpFlow test

1049 - Houston Proximity detection (1 stab, 1 loit)

1059 - Autotune on Pegasus [

1145 - Drone picture

+2 more flight on houston - battery swap.

Batteries

1 set of battery for pegasus (4 batteries +) - total FT unknown

4 batteries for Houston - total FT unknown

  • almost all batteries on houston around 14% (guessing 10.6v)

Green/Yellow/Red

Tip

  • Lidar not broken

  • Pegasus not broken

  • Manual flights on loiter into walls did not result in crashing

  • RFD900x on houston worked very quickly (last minute switch from Pegasus to Houston)

    • (ELRS did not have air-data rate)

  • Secondary controller worked fine (models were copied day of, but worked).

  • Media gathered

  • Pilot practice

  • We left on time, didn’t forget anything

Note

  • Arm switch on pink controller bit close to the mode switch (in Megan Spee opinion)

    • Models were copied from Blue controller to pink Controller before flight test & without pilot checks.

  • Obstacle avoidance was really shaky in bendyruler pathing, took 4 tries to get past the shed

  • didn’t note down total flight times or battery voltages post-flight

    • Total flight times recorded on controller, but not noted.

    • Takeoff times not recorded.

    • Battery voltages not recorded.

  • pegasus shaking strangely large amounts pre takeoff on arm

  • GPS loiter not good on houston+pegasus

  • Auxiliary video/FPV drones around works for media but was distracting/ interfered with the tests

    • being within yelling range helped: could tell people to back off

Warning

  • Houston went up to ~ 40 meters and fell

    • pretty sure it was battery failsafeing

    • Houston batteries ran down to 4% - 10.4 V after recovery

  • Pegasus EKF failure, not sure why

  • LTE connection

    • could not fly after this

  • Pegasus yaw tune was pretty bad

Analysis

Pegasus Op-Flow Calibration [0050.bin]

Took off + op flow calibration worked great

  • FlowX and FlowY scalars set to -158 and -152.

  • Took about ~ 10 seconds to calibrate, required pitch/roll inputs.

EKF failure when transitioning from GPS to non-GPS modes → Entered failsafe and landed.

  • can takeoff in GPS mode and then switch to EKF SOURCE Middle (opflow only)

    • can maintain stable flight / position controlled flight for ~ 10 seconsd before EKF failsafe

  • Had a bit of drifting in xy plane in loiter (not maintaining a very good position hold). Could be due to GPS error (but had opflow?).

    • occured in both GPS and OpFlow modes.

Notes/ next steps:

  • determine root cause

    • See if error is re-producable

  • Do not fly over people/buildings until source/cause is known (potential to enter EKF failsafe upon gps disconnection?)

  • Attempt to determine solutionss

    • Potentially re-configuring EKF sources / blending

    • Potentially re-calibrate accelerometer

    • Potentially examine gps-nongps transitions in more details

Houston proximity

  • Maintained 2m distance (set distance) when flying in loiter towards obstacles.

    • Worked in all directions.

    • Worked the best from the front, not significantly different in all axis.

    • Harder to tell if input commanded was aligned.

  • If you had more momentum approaching the wall, the drone would over-compensate and “bounce” away from the wall.

    • If full throttle, it would move back to 2m.

    • If backed off the throttle, maybe a bit of oscillation.

Pegasus Autotune

  • Pegasus Yaw had significant amounts of overshoot

    • Fixed after re running autotune

Houston Auto mission

  • Took multiple attempts to path around the object.

  • Saw the house, was trying to go around? Seemed like it couldn’t find the place…

    • there were 3 meters high bushes around the house'

Some failure points

  • 4 meters was too tall for the shed/house we were using as a wall obstacle

  • auto mission went close to a pole, resulted in pilot disarming the drone

Todo

Action items for next flight test

  • Try to fix this by recalibrating accelerometer at start of next flight test