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Attendance

Flight test Recap

Good:

  • Flew pegasus successfully!

    • Gained efficiency data

      • results: efficiency was pretty close on all of them tbh

      • speed proportional in some sense to current draw ish…. meaning if we fly at 18 m/s the battery dies in 10 mins vs 8 m/s when batt dies in 30 min (not linear either but correlates to distance). So there’s not a real different in efficiency at different speeds.

      • since we have a 30 min flight window, flying at the speed 8 m/s for 30 mins is fine

      • We will want to test this further- didn’t actually accelerate to top speed in the 18-20 m/s sprints

        • didn’t do back AND forth

      • also will change when cabin weight + shrouds are complete, will test again

      • Peak efficiency for these motors → is better at lower throttle. So better to run these slower

Bad:

  • new LTE issue on the drone 😄

    • when it’s going very fast the LTE drops out and connects back ~ sometimes ~

    • working with autonomy to get a logging script on the LTE module

  • arm switch being hilarious (only working 1/3 times on average)

Agenda

Table of Contents
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Propulsion + Control

Action items / blockers:

  • FTR for WVN

Updates:

Mech

Electrical

New ELRS Hardware Project

  • Nolan Haines please do some research and put questions here to be addressed during the meeting, this meeting is a great time for integration discussions like this!

    • TABLED (thumbs up)

6S ESC motor selection

Using table to determine current on the drone. - these motors are too large for houston.

this is something that can be used on houston (3S)

tabled for right now

EFS

Wind Estimation

  • Ardupilot feature to be enabled

logs analyzed in order to find propeller drag

Weathervaning?

  • Potential feature to be tested.

    • maybe useful based on cabin shape?

Sensing

Action items / blockers:

Updates:

Mech

Houston Sensor Mounts

  • This is 1D lidar (rangefinder), op flow?

  • We will need to take the 1D lidar off pegasus in order to fly it on houston.

we do not need mount for 1D lidar for houston yet! - does not need to be on houston for this FT. Pegasus will have the 1D lidar.

Electrical

Houston Sensor Harnessing

  • ^ see above.

Optical Flow (OFS)

same as pegasus harness

EFS

Houston Sensor Calibration

Specifically for houston

see if the issues with tuning pegasus are replicated on houston

~~ probably a few days before feb 10

  • to be assigned out in tomorrows meeting/ talked about/ during work session

Autonomy

Video System

Action items / blockers:

  • Tasks out in Asana to prep video system for FT this weekend.

Updates:

Mechanical

Mounting

VTX mount to be reviewed, forwards-facing camera mount ready to be printed.

  • printer small difficulty, print in RPC or something (thumbs up)

feb 10!

we have a VTX mount

we have a camera mount

Electrical

VTX harnessing

Same situation as opflow harnessing

just 3 wires

2nd from top drawer, yellow container, CADDX ? cameras.

  • just one for now, don’t worry about video muxing

EFS

RC Controller Mapping

  • 8 and 12 both have mode switching

  • pink controller has a new arm switch (SE)

    • not functioning that well

    • will fix

Ardupilot Mux Output Config

mix the video on the drone to get multiple camera angles

  • EFS flight test team thing 🔥

probably pretty easy (famous last words)

Ardupilot OSD Config

  • Confer with pilots on preferences.

if OSD can be configured, we can do it (“bit of a pain to configure”)

EFS flight test team things

Autonomy

LTE Video?

Possible / ready to FT early march?

to be discussed next meeting!

Command + Telem

Action items / blockers:

  • Case for gemini board

    • Needs partslist/specifications document

      include positions, locations, facing-direction, any distances from specific other components, holes in cases, which parts need cooling, what cooling hardware we need, access to debug ports, weatherproofing requirements

    • provide the details to mechanical

  • EFS worksession @ wednesday 6pm → controller updates

    • updating firmware

    • Arm/Disarm re-mapping

    • cleaning up labels/models

Updates:

Mech

Updates:

Mech

Case can be done this weekend, but is not required

(Gemini board)

Will need the 3D files from

Electrical

RFD Board

  • order still shipping, ETA next week

ELRS Gemini PCB

  • Almost Ready for EFS, still missing XT30 connectors

CASE:

Gemini Enclosure Requirements

Fan is optional

Case can be done this weekend, but is not required

EFS

Gemini LinkStats

  • Gemini linkstats not being passed through to TX16? (Only relay linkstats)

Improved Streaming

Autonomy

LTE

  • LTE has been switched from Zerotier to a Mavlink forwarding server hosted on oracle cloud with a public IP.

  • GCS failsafe works now when any part of the link disconnects

  • LTE disconnects when flying at high speed. This could be due to the antenna angle changing as the drone tilts, interferance in the cell signal or USB cable caused by higher electrical noise when at higher throttle, or something else entirely. It reconnects when the drone slows back down.

  • I (Nathan Green ) added an extension cable to one of the antennas and mounted it on a landing leg to see if that improves the signal. It keeps the antenna away from sources of noise on the top of the drone and the plates won’t block it when angled. Will test this next flight test.

  • Autonomy needs to make a script that logs LTE signal strength https://www.waveshare.net/w/upload/6/68/SIM7500_SIM7600_Series_AT_Command_Manual_V2.00.pdf (AT+CSQ) and operator (AT+COPS?) to a file for next flight test. This will help determine if it is an interferance issue, roaming issue, or something else. The modem could be trying to roam on another network and failing, and it would have to be forced to stay on one.

Airframe - General

Action items / blockers:

  • Houston: New landing gear, takeoffs & Handling at different weights.

Updates:

  • < Decision Documentation >

Mech

Pegasus

Cabin is constructed and mounted on the drone, flew and tuned with it on Saturday.

Houston

Houston is out of commission mechanically atm, houston tests need to be on hold until the landing gear and lidar mount are replaced - Alison Thompson

  • maybe by feb 10 we have a new and improved lidar mount

Houston landing gear request via Anthony Luo

  • couple times houston tips over when it lands

  • requesting landing capability while in ‘slight translational motion’

Limited on weight. In short-term, current version can be remade. Can get someone on adding more support.

  • what flight weight does houston need to stay under?

    • Megan Spee Anthony Luo to find an answer (or do this properly) 😞

    • either test this IRL or just pick a nice number

Electrical

LED Board

EFS

LEB Board Firmware

  • Owen Grimm first the first prototype code for LED board

  • Waiting for leads to do the PR

  • Waiting for the chips to arrive to do bench test

Autonomy

Tracking Antenna - General

Action items / blockers:

  • Ground tests blocking tracking antenna flight test.

  • EFS going to procure GPSs

  • EE going to make a confluence doc yayyy

Updates:

  • < Decision Documentation >

Mech

Tracking Antenna Mechanical

Parts have been ordered. Sheet metal has been cut and bent. Plan is to build one first and then build the other. On track.

Electrical

Nucleo Shield

  • Nolan Haines Michael Botros Please update this document with status and your questions (they can be answered async, ik u guys have work lol)

  • Current status

    • Schematic done, board layout is close to being done.

    • There will be some changes to the overall board to make it smaller and more compact.

    • Currently rewriting all the documentation for the board for readability.

  • Questions:

Check mechanical’s documentation on tracking antenna before proceeding!

If questions are not answered please Check arch doc/ offline submit to mechanical

  • I basically wanna make sure tracking antenna PCB can support all of our ground station towers, is there a link or place with a list or block diagram of our different towers?

  • Will tracking antenna have enough and all the proper connectors to support different peripherals on the tower?

  • Currently for VTX tower, tracking antenna only supplies 12V power, is this all thats needed from tracking antenna or is more connectivity needed?

EFS

Arduino Tracking Antenna

  • Ayoung Eun Aryan Kashem did the ground test on Sunday I think

  • “The tracking antenna follows the altitude, failed to follow longitude and laititude

  • Action task : fix the starting angle so it isn’t getting predetermined and test latitude and longitude“

Will probably complete ground testing this week and implement in flight test for feb 10. Not a huge rush but can speed up this timeline if people are interested in doing the work early.

looking for whether or not the data rate is good enough to keep the antenna pointed at the drone. So can gather this data without actually putting it on the flight line.

Budgeting: pick the lowest price point you can get away with

You need to receive corrections data from the RTK thing and send it to the GPS…

get higher quality/newer M8/9/10s or GPS in general

Autonomy


General Updates

  • Recent EE Board order W

Flight test schedule

Feb 10: 2024-02-10 Pegasus + Houston Flight Test - Flight Tests - WARG (atlassian.net)

  • Pegasus Video transmission solution (incl. tracking antenna if possible?)

  • OA/gemini on houston

  • bumped Houston transmitting LTE video.

EFS flight prep work sesh on wednesday 6pm ishhh

Action Items

FIND PILOT (especially if on-stream in the summer (wink) )

  • will sponsor advanced rpas test (once) + ground school

thx for listen