June 11, 2023 Flight Test
Make sure to update the Title following the format “Jan 01, 2020 Flight Test”
Flight Preparation
Requested by: | @Anthony Luo |
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Required Sub-teams | Mech Electrical EFS CV Operation Sys-Int |
Requested Date | Jan 25, 2023 |
Location and Time | Location: WREST RC Time: June 11, specific time TBD |
Summary & Goals | Takek off Vanny? |
Approved? | Yes / Pending / No |
Required Persons During Test
Name | Phone # | Role | Reason |
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@Anthony Luo |
| Flight Test Lead |
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@Anthony Luo @Megan Spee |
| Pilot in Command |
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@Conall Kingshott |
| Safety |
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Other Attendees
Name | Role |
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@Nathan Green |
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Drivers & Seat Arrangement
Driver | Vehicle Type | Passenger |
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@Anthony Luo | RAV 4 SDC Vehicle |
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Success criteria
Tests | Success Criteria | Requirements | Outcome |
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Testing Timeline
Date/Time | Action |
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June 09 & 10 | Pre-flight Preparation |
TBD depending on Motorsport’s timeline on Sunday. Following times assume morning. 8:00 | Required persons for preflight preparation show up at bay, approx 8 am Flight test lead briefly assign task for preparation work |
9:00 | Flight brief from flight test lead |
9:15 | Loading onto the Car Take your water bottle with you. Go washroom before we leave! |
9:30 | Drive to the test ground |
10:00 | Flight Testing |
12:00 | Debrief |
Aircraft Incident Procedures
Incident | Procedure |
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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 |
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Property Damage |
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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 Debrief
In total, multiple flights were performed. Basic functions such as flight modes, RTL, auto-land, and failsafes were tested.
Flight set #1 (basic function + flight modes)
The first set of batteries was put in for basic functionality check of the drone.
The drone was flown in three different flight modes, in the following order:
Stabilize, Megan
Stabilize, Anni
AltHold, Megan
Loiter, Megan
Flight set #2 (RC, GCS failsafe + RTL)
The first set of batteries was then used for testing RTL, RC Failsafe, and GCS Failsafe.
The order of testing was as follows:
Stabilized takeoff + flyout → RTL (from short range)
Loiter takeoff + flyout → Transmitter poweroff (with RC link through RFD900’s) → Smart RTL
Loiter takeoff + flyout → RFD900 poweroff (RC Link on drone directly). → Loiter landing.
“Continue if in pilot controlled modes on GCS failsafe” was checked.
Loiter takeoff + flyout → RFD900 poweroff (RC Link on drone directly) → RTL
“Continue if in pilot controlled modes on GCS failsafe” now unchecked.
Testing RTL mode actions on altitude
first test ensures loiter will climb to RTL altitude
second test ensures loiter will only descend at landing time.
Flight Set #3 (testing autoland, position hold)
A new set of batteries were used to test position hold, RTL, and autoland accuracy.
GPS-Only loiter accuracy was observed to be within +/-30cm when left at no stick input (very good).
RTL accuracy evaluated to be roughly +/-50cm
Flight Test Post Mortem
Vanny Flew
Pitch/Roll tune looks good
Total flight time for 50% battery capacity is around
Altitude hold incredibly consistent
Yaw control is lacking (almost as bad as cornflakes).
Megan doesn’t think it was as bad. Maybe 1/2 as bad as cornflakes. Spun it around a lot and it responded in a predictable way.
Flight Characteristics
Since this is the maiden flight of Vanny for a while, I’d like to go over some flight characteristics.
Pitch/Roll Control
Pitch/Roll control was good, however the drone was slightly sluggish to respond and the maximum roll/pitch angle could be higher (I think).
In the above image, you can see that there is some overshoot and oscillation on roll, which you can more clearly see on a zoomed in crop of the last few half-impulses before returning to center:
The same can be observed on the pitch axis:
Note that during the entire impulse test, the drone was able to maintain altitude fairly well, although it’s difficult to tell since the drone is correcting for it’s own altitude during flight. This will be discussed more when I talk about altitude hold.
Yaw Control
Yaw control seems to be one of the weaker items on our drone . Not sure if this is due to poor tuning or throttle output saturation (unlikely). In general, the drone would carry a lot of momentum after letting go of the yaw input, and would tend to overshoot / continue with yawing after letting go of the stick (often leading to backstick).
I’m not sure what might cause this - but I would like to compare results after running auto-tune on yaw.
Altitude Control
Altitude control was excellent, even without a rangefinder. The GPS + Barometer + IMU system on the higher end pixhawk is really doing wonders to keep the drone stable.
You can see pretty clearly that our altitude and desired altitude are quite close to each other, in all guided flight modes. There is some measured “oscillation”, but this is very small. Any actual difference in altitude during flight would have come from errors in measuring / calculating altitude from EK3.
It is worth noting that the hover throttle was fairly consistent throughout all flights, with the individual motor outputs being around 1500 us. Angle boost was also fairly minimal, but present and effective at helping the drone maintain hover:
Red = Front Right
Green = Back Left
Blue = Front Left
Orange = Back Right
In general, it’s hard to determine if one side of the drone is significantly more imbalanced than the other, but you can clearly tell that the hover throttle for the drone is around half (i’m not sure if there’s better measurements that I can make).
Position Accuracy
In general, position accuracy was great (considering this is one non-rtk gps). We were within +/-50cm doing multiple takeoffs and RTL’s, and the drone logs show that desired position and actual position correspond quite well. In general, this tells us that any deviation we see in position would come from measurement inaccuracies from the sensors themselves.
RCA for Red Items
Create a RCA and keep it as a child page.
Action Items
Other Resources
Booking WRESTRC Field