Pegasus Ready. Comp Pilots secured.
Requesting team: Leads/Directors/Comp 24 team
Items TBD:
Location (need 1.5km stretch where we can maintain VLOS)
Communication protocol for maintaining VLOS
Batteries avail ⁉️
Sections for flightline team to fill out:
Incident Procedures, communication preferences.
Test Cards
📋 Admin Preparation
Flight test approved as requested by power of Tech Director
Requested By | Anthony Luo |
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Sub-Team Review (To be checked once reviewed by sub-team representative) |
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Date of Request |
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Goal Summary | Full competition program w/competition operator + Any auxilliary data to be accumulated on Houston |
Status? | APPROVED |
Desired Airframe | Pegasus |
Desired Date(s) | March 23/24. |
🥅 Testplan - to be filled out by requesting team
Create ONE table per test-item. Eg: “Landing pad images over asphalt”, “landing pad images over grass”, “landing pad images over grass, high” should all be unique tables.
Use each expand to capture one series of tests, eg “Landing pad detection” or “Auto-tuning”.
Task 1 - Endurance | ||
Procedure | Goals / Objectives | Failure criteria |
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| VBatt below 3.3v/cell (39.6V overall) safety threshold: 40V
Lost link
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Procedure | Goals / Objectives | Failure criteria |
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| VBatt below 3.3v/cell (39.6V overall) safety threshold: 40V
Lost link
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Explain what capacity you need, what needs to be mounted, etc.
Necessary items:
Pegasus w/competition kit
rpi + full camera suite + cabin + humans
cv camera + 3 fpv cameras. One forward (neutral, maybe slightly down), One forward (up), One down.
Flight characteristics needed:
Most efficient speed
est. 18m/s
Comms / Support needed:
Visual observers + chase vehicle for the drone
🫂 Attendees
This is a section for all attendees from your subteam which will be present for this flight test. (because they are testing their products, or otherwise)
Name | Phone # | Sub-team | Role |
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Director | Media, transportation | ||
Tech Director | PIC | ||
EFS | PIC | ||
Advisor | Observation/Support | ||
EFS | Testing RTK GPS | ||
Observer |
This section and remaining to be filled out by FTC and Flightline Team
Flightline Team
Name | Phone # | Role | Reason |
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PIC | |||
PIC | |||
Pre-Flight Preparation
Checklists
Software configuration correct
Compare against latest baselines and verify no params changed, or changes approved by comp-ft-team
Autopilot Orientation checked
Motors tested
Sensors outputs healthy & within range
Controller input mappings correct
Controller input choices correct for pilot preferences
Wireless trainer tested & working per pilot preferences.
Hardware (wiring)
Wires are not too tight or too loose (comfortable, not strained, not flapping around)
No cut/exposed wires
Shrouding is neat + presentable
Solder joints look good
no cracks
no corrossion
no exposed contacts (unless expected)
Connectors fully plugged in
Connectors in good health
Hardware (airframe)
Bolts secure (nothing loose)
Carbon fiber not cracked
3D prints not failing / crushed / cracked
No loose items
Hardware (groundstation)
ELRS Gemini tested & Working
Logging correct
Data looks correct
Control tower tested & working
Tracking antenna x2 (control + video) (mechanical)
Servos secure
Hardware (antennas) secure
No cracks/bends/chips in polycarb/aluminum
Gears / shafts look healthy
Grease if necessary
Tracking antenna x2 (control + video) (electrical)
Electrical components secure
Power delivery / signal wires secure, no cracks/corrosion/damage
Video System
goggles(?)
Monitors(?)
Video tower tested & working
Laptop w/mission planner configured correctly.
LTE Link tested working
Flightline Kit
Spare motors
Spare props
Spare tools
Metric allen keys
Socket set
Pliers (flatnose + needle nose)
USB-C cable (short & long)
Soldering iron + heat shrink + spare cables
Power supplies for ground station computer
Ground station computer
Spare bolts
Radio Controllers
Incident Procedures
⏲️ Flight Test Timeline
Date/Time | Action | Notes |
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9:15 | Briefing @ WARG Bay | |
9:45 | Arrival at Flight Test Location | about 5 cm of snow on entire skid pad |
10:15 | Flight Test Card #1 - Efficiency/Endurance, 3 Waypoints | Flight 0 - couple hundred meters. Used blue controller. Took off, LTE dropped out after 5 seconds. Ended up returning to home - first flew up to 100 meters ~ 200 meters away to hit the first waypoint, then the 45 second no-telemetry count down kicked in. Switched to RFDs. Flight 1 - 1.2 km total flight. all fully autonomous through mission planner. Took turns a little hard. When returning, flew over the firefighter zone. Fixed this for the next flyover. |
10:25 | Flight 2 - 1.2 km total flight. same as previous. Did not fly over firefighters. | |
10:45 | Flight 3 - 1.2 km total flight. Had to check battery health immediately following this. Battery failsafed about 10 meters off the ground, tried to land, Nathan took over on the blue TX manually. Had to hit full throttle immediately after taking control just to stop the drone from falling. Batteries visibly sagged very hard and drone had a slightly rough landing (not a free fall, just a slow drop) from about 2 meters. Can be seen in IMG_1496 March 23 - OneDrive (sharepoint.com) | |
10:50 | Flight test card 3 - RTK GPS checks | Took ~ 5-10 minutes. Got a hold. |
11:30 | Debrief | Below |
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💻 DEBRIEF
Didn’t crash
~1.5ish comp laps with 4x 5000mAh batteries (old batteries)
Flew at 30m/s (108 km/hr ground speed)
RFD900 works
RTK got to fixed mode at 5mm accuracy
Set up quickly and followed checklists
Checked the pre-arm warning in the bay before leaving
Speed was unpredictable. set at 18 m/s but flew at ground speed 30 m/s
RTK easily switches back to float
Noise in the video signal
Didn’t have a mission planner setup with coordinates for task 1
Meant we had to adjust it in the bay before and also during the flight test.
Lack of visual observers - most people heads down on the laptop. Someone on the flight line should be looking at the drone at all times
Very fast turns - acceleration at direction changes looked very high
LTE dropout
OSD dropout (same interference probably)
Batteries very uneven voltages, failsafed and had a mid-rough landing at the end of the 3rd flight.
probably cooked for good. these ones are bad now.
good thing we’re getting new batteries on monday
can use a couple of them for ground tower things, but shouldn’t fly them again
Card #1 Debrief
Flew 4 flights total.
Flight #1
Took off in typical configuration, experienced GS Lost Link after ~ 5 seconds. Continued mission until first waypoint, and then failsafed into RTL.
LTE was swapped for RFD900’s.
Flight #2
1.2km total flight
<<< to be updated >>>>
Action items
Reset the LTE module because current settings made it worse
made a board that switches RFD to LTE
takes PWM input
Do we have GPIO? -@aidan
if so we can just use this to switch transmission
Can we just measure RSSI?
LTE doesn’t report a RSSI.
need a LUA script to say ‘if disconnected' check after 20 sec and if still disconnected, switch over.
This should be ok for comp because control is still connected. ELRS.
check ground speed when ardu is set to 10 m/s (this time, it was set to 18 - at another flight test, if we have
wire lengths helped with video but didn’t help OSD cutting out
either shield it more or use a capacitor.
Use coax? Aidan Bowers (Deactivated)
OSD overlay disappears when the drone is armed? Ayush Ganguly Nathan Green
do the ESCs have something to do with this
check that OSD isn’t being disabled (channel 5 lmao) at the same time as the arm switch
this is probably the case
set behavior of battery failsafe to land (second failsafe) Nathan Green
Nathan Green Replace the RPI with an old phone.
Actually decreases by 80 grams.
Mission planner graphs
