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Name

Phone #

Role

Reason

Megan Spee

Pilot;

/PIC Houston

Yuchen Lin

GSO

GSO Houston

Anthony Luo

Pilot

PIC Pegasus

Nathan Green

GSO

GSO Pegasus -primary

Sam Zhang

GSO

GSO Pegasus -secondary

Pre-Flight Preparation

Checklists

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

Actual Timeline Recap

Time

Activity

Notes

0700

Battery Charging Began

0905

Briefing began

0945

Battery Charging finished

1000

Left the bay

3 vehicles

1015

Arrived WrestRC

Field was covered in slush/pooled water. Only one dry track

1032-1034

Pegasus OpFlow Calibration (1-1)

Log file 50.BIN

1042-1043

Pegasus Loiter - GPS Handling (1-X)

Log file 51.BIN

1047-1047

Pegasus Loiter - OpFlow Handling (1-X)

Log file 51.BIN

1051

Houston proximity test (3-1)

Log file 70.BIN

Batt #1

1059

Pegasus Autotune (X-X)

Log file 53.BIN

1110-1112

Houston Auto Mission (3-3) Attempt #1.

Log file 71.BIN

Unsuccessful - spun in circles trying to avoid the obstacle

Batt #2

11:15:15-11:15:45

Houston Auto Mission (3-3) Attempt #2

Log file 71.BIN

Unsuccessful - disarmed prematurely.

Batt #2

11:45

multi-drone photo

11:50:33 - 11:54:50

Houston Auto Mission (3-3) Attempt #3

Log file 73.BIN

Unsuccessful - Altitude too high

11:57:20 - 1159:51

Houston Auto Mission (3-3) Attempt #4

Log file 73.BIN

Unsuccessful - Got stuck in turn-around due to embankment being detected as an obstacle.

12:04:15 - 12:14:27

Houston Auto Mission (3-3) Attempt #5

Log file 74.BIN

Successful - passed obstacle after 4 attempts.

Had a very hard unscheduled, uncontrolled, rapid descent.

Tip
  • OPFlow was calibrated, EKF Transitions were tested (Card #1 Complete ✅ )

    • Pegasus not damaged.

  • Houston Obstacle Avoidance verified both in Loiter and in Auto missions (Card #3 Complete ✅ )

    • Landing gear & houston was kept in-tact despite multiple hard landings / failsafes

    • Lidar not broken and continues to function

  • RFD900x was swapped from Pegasus to Houston very quickly.

    • ELRS did not have the necessary air-data rate.

  • Pink controller worked

    • Models were copied day of

  • Media gathered

  • Pilot practice is good

  • We left on time, didn’t forget anything

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The deadzone for takeoff + landing throttle on Pegasus is also significantly larger (read: harsher landing + takeoff) compared to Vanny or Icarus.

Pegasus typically hovers around ~ 2800 rpm

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Autotune

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FlowCAL + GPS/non-gps transition

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  • Houston took multiple attempts to navigate around the obstacle.

  • Possible to see proximity sensors pinging off the obstacle and reporting closer values as houston navigates around?

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  • Final battery dropped to around ~ <8v during the RTL sequence, .

  • The drone did enter RTL and then LAND, at 9.51 and 7.44V respectively……

    • Likely due to failsafe impedance/2seconds of being below critical values?

    • battery dropped from 10v to < 8v within ~ 2 seconds - too fast to react to.

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ExpressLRS

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  • TPwr remained at 10 mW basically the entire flight, maybe 25mW sometimes.

  • RSSI quite healthy.

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Next-Steps

  • Update & clarify transmitter mappings, common channels, etc. for all drones.

    • arm/disarm sequences, mode channels, aux functions, telemetry logging, etc.

  • Test gemini, tracking-antenna

  • Remember to note down takeoff & landing times of all drones (at least total FT)

  • Remember to have videos of drones during FT’s.

  • Evaluate Pegasus tune.

  • Evaluate operation under GPS failures.

  • Come up with plan to optimize obstacle detection

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