Make sure to update the Title following the format “Jan 01, 2020 Flight Test”
📋 Flight Preparation
Requested by: | Megan Spee |
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Required Sub-teams |
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Requested Date |
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Location and Time | July 9th 2023 @ WRESTRC 12 - 6 pm |
Summary & Goals |
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Approved? | Yes ✅ |
Need camera, jetson, jetson power support
Need the jetson zip-tied on
Need jetson connections fixed up
have EE/CV assess the current wiring setup - may need to add a buck
👥 Required Persons During Test
Name | Phone # | Role | Reason |
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Megan Spee | 604 229 5370 | Flight Test Lead |
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Anthony Luo | Pilot in Command |
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Safety |
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Autonomy Technician |
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👥 Other Attendees
Name | Role |
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@Saransh Duggal |
🚗 Drivers & Seat Arrangement
Driver | Vehicle Type | Passenger |
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Anthony Luo | Rav4 |
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Megan Spee | 5-seater Prius |
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📊 Success criteria
Tests | Success Criteria | Requirements | Outcome |
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⏲️ Testing Timeline
Date/Time | Action |
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July 7 | Aircraft Assembly
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July 8 | Pre-flight Preparation |
July 9, 10 am | Required persons for preflight preparation show up at bay Flight test lead breifly assign task for preparation work |
July 9, 11 am | Flight brief from flight test lead |
July 9, 11: 15am | Lunch break |
July 9, 11: 45am | Loading onto the Car Take your water bottle with you. Go washroom before we leave! |
July 9, 12:00 | Drive to the test ground |
July 9 12 - 3 pm | Flight Testing |
July 9 3:15 pm | Debrief |
🧯 Aircraft Incident Procedures
Incident | Procedure |
|---|---|
Crash | Outline the procedure for who will go to handle the aircraft in the event of a crash, what should be done, were emergency equipment is, etc. |
Flyaway | Outline the procedure for flyaways. List relevant contact information for local authorities and plans of action to recover control of the aircraft |
Configuration Error | Outline steps to take in the event of a configuration issue with the aircraft |
Injury | |
Property Damage |
🔧 Week-Before To-Do List
🔧 Day-Before To-Do List
↪️ Pre-Departure Checklist
🚩 Pre-flight Safety Checklist
😎 Post-Flight Checklist
Item | Owner |
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| ALL MEMBERS PRESENT |
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Flight Test Debrief
Flight test rundown:
Motor test
Flew in loit, failsafed due to GCS disconnect (rfd900’s)
Turned off GCS failsafe in pilot control mode
Flew over, landed on, over-ground landing pads.
Moved landing pads
flew over, landed on, over-grass landing pads.
Tried auto-tune on battery 1.
atune completed
thrust loss on 3
gps / compass glitch
“landing” on battery failsafe (3v/cell)
Tried auto-tune on battery 2
atune completed
landed & saved
Logs: 2032-07-09
Flight Test Post Mortem
5W vtx delivers clear video.
Landing pad detection model works pretty well.
Autotune on YAW completed successfully twice.
Got lots of messages about Opflow/Lidar health. GPS1 also failing configuration checks
Batteries had a LOT of sag (21V in flight recovering to 23V after)
Continually got GCS failsafe messages on first few flights.
RF interference was high in general - TPower on the tracer was up to 250mW at times, LOS < 100m away….
RCA for Red Items
Create a RCA and keep it as a child page.
5W VTX Performance
Noticed significantly better video transmission when landing in grass field south/south-east of skid pad.
No degredation in signal quality observed at all
comparable to fading to b&w and/or losing signal on 800mW.
Model Performance
Autotune Performance
Auto-tune completed successfully twice
The results were slightly different both times, maybe due to voltage difference between the two batteries:
Overall, we learned a lot about how autotune works, and are pleasantly surprised to see it function effectively. The general process is as follows:
Takeoff, fly over a certain area in a guided flight mode such as AltHold, Loiter.
Invoke autotune flight mode from the RC Controller
Wait for autotune to complete. Once done, the drone will use original tunes and maintain flight mode that it was invoked from.
Switch out of autotune into preferred flight mode for testing the tune.
If the tune is good → Switch back into autotune, land, and disarm. The values will save.
If the tune is not good → Land immediately and disarm, the values will not save.
Some important notes that we learned:
“Autotune: failing to level” messages can be safely ignored. Drift is not super bad with GPS hold.
Sensor Health
Throughout the flight test, there were numerous messages about bad opflow, or lidar health. Our suspicion is that these warnings are caused by the tall grass and trees creating variable and moving terrain under the drone.
Battery Sag / Voltage
Batteries sagged as low as 12V overall (2v/cell) near the end of the flight. The drop-off was incredibly fast as batteries were sitting around 21V/cell when autotune ended.
The low battery voltage led to a “supposed” lost of thrust on motor 3, where it was at full throttle and unable to provide thrust to change the attitude of the drone. This rapid lost in thrust would also contribute to our harsher-than-normal landing.