2023-05-05 Practice Flight @ Airstrip & Daily Debrief
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Day recap
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morning icarus autotune
5AM flight ICARUS to run autotune
Run autotune for 4:30 min, the drone lost all autopilot and dropped about 1-2 meters
caused mechanical failures:
superstructure mostly undamaged
landing gear has a crack, leaving that to monitor
weight in the cabin s
Drew more than 2amps via BEC that has a 2 amp limiter for the pixhawk is the assumed cause. Repaired by switching out the BEC to one with 8 amp limit (I think)
repaired the drone after this
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Presentation
Went great - we presented last, picked 1st place
They liked that we had pitched it to “big city” and followed a presentation as if we were presenting to a mayor of a city instead of technical experts
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Path optimization
Task 2 code looked good, only a few edits, maximized revenue.
Then switched priorities to change priority to distance and simplicity instead of profit
NOTE: probably should’ve reassessed this requirement PRIOR to the day we needed to use the algorithm
ended up not using the algorithm to prioritize simplicity for the drone
Algorithm was still helpful for considering alternates and high revenue options
13 landing pads with 15kg weight limits. Had to fly at least 50% of the 19 total given
So fly 10 routes
However, was informed that 10kg weight limit was lifted, so we recreated the route to include 10 kg pads as well
Made some landing pads easier to get to → makes the flight path look pretty achievable.
Order is easiest to hardest
Task 1
fixed the bug that it flies through the restricted zones
Need to test if we can upload a mission while the drone is in flight
and the current mission state
that’s how the diversions are followed
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Flight readiness @ 1400
flight termination in fixed wing flight was discussed
fixed wing spiral down was spiralling nosedive
kill switch → out of sky
controller disconnect → spiral down and QLAND, or just QLAND
passed the review
however 1 kg overweight
started taking material off the drone
hacksawing 3D prints and drilling things out, removing tape, tack, extra bolts, a redundant phone video system and battery
passed the next weight test after 3-4 hours, 14.8 kg
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Fixing houston
crunchy motor
the push…. motor
@Hamza Ali @Aidan Bowers (Deactivated) fixed this
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Flight test at 1830
Flight Test attendees - all
Flight line - @Anthony Luo @Megan Spee @Aidan Bowers (Deactivated) @Nathan Green @Conall Kingshott
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Objectives
Validate flight after several failures in autotune over the last few days, including one at 5AM this morning that broke part of the cabin
See if the different BEC (5V line power to the pixhawk) fixes the full system shutoff error
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Notes
checklist was not followed much, we could not take the transmitters out
should and can change the checklist to account for this situation
plug telem back in when done
can walk back n forth with the drone because we are at the airfield
Saw carleton fly semi transition with a flexible frame
Compass calibration was cool!
At the flight line: did control surface checks, motor test, arming check
Op flow issue, unplug->plug back in to solve
@Anthony Luo flew in hover QLOITER, landed, no incident. throttle touchy,
@Megan Spee also flew hover QLOITER, during the descent to land, rear right motor seemed to drop out and it fell from ~1m
As far as @Aidan Bowers (Deactivated) can tell, nothing to do with Ardupilot
Fell for less than a second
was trying to YAW clockwise. Ardupilot wasn’t trying to throttle up or anything though to correct for this
@Nathan Green says likely ESC or wiring issue
Maybe faulty ESC? was it a soggy ESC?
Motor didn't STOP spinning it just slowed down and lost throttle
Using DSHOT → if it doesn’t receive a valid signal, it will just stop. But it wasn’t stopped or locked (we have locking motors too)
Didn’t see this issue on cornflakes, we are using different ESCs, possibly that issue. Overheating? Was only on for a few minutes. The motor that failed was pinned at nearly 100% throttle. around 95%
didnt use radios
make sure behind flight line ppl arent calling up flight line
maybe conall has earpiece and filters behind fline info
also didnt take vtx. ended flight before plugin
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Action items
@Nathan Green working on motor issue ICARUS
@Hamza Ali on media photos
@R D task 1 stuff
@Ethan Abraham soldering spare ESC
Revise checklists @Megan Spee @Anthony Luo @Aidan Bowers (Deactivated)
@Megan Spee comprehensive site survey
@Anthony Luo@Ayoung Eun set up houston if we can
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Testing ICARUS motor - run it with no props on? See if it cuts out. if so, it’s a signal issue
wire something up to the pixhawk to get ESC stats so we can see what’s up with the rear right motor.
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Might abort partway through task 1 if it looks like it’s gonna be bad + if we need to do more testing
Tomorrow - flight window opens @ 10:00
Breakfast 630-730
800 -1000 prep. start doing checklists @ 930. just over an hour to fix issues
devices need to charge immediately after breakfast
6 batteries
all controllers
laptop
VTX battery
goggles battery
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