2024-01-27 Pegasus + Houston Flight Test
Sections for requesting team to fill out:
Admin preparation
Test Cards / Test Plan
Mandatory Attendees
Sections for flight test coordinator to fill out:
Flightline team
Location
Status
Drone
Sections for flightline team to fill out:
EFS to fill out Card #1, #2, #3 (Opflow, Tracking Antenna, Obstacle Avoidance)
Admin Preparation
Requested By | @Anthony Luo |
---|---|
Sub-Team Review (To be checked once reviewed by sub-team representative) | Mechanical Electrical EFS Autonomy Operations |
Date of Request | Jan 16, 2024 |
Goal Summary |
|
Status? | Waiting for Sub-Team Review |
Desired Airframe | Houston / Pegasus |
Location + Time | WrestRC 1300-1800 |
Wx
https://www.windy.com/station/ad-cykf?42.541,-80.379,8 Waterloo Weather Station
Testplan - to be filled out by requesting team
Necessary Preparation
Mechanical
Electrical
Embedded Flight Software
Autonomy
Attendees
Name | Phone # (opt) | Sub-team | Driving | Role |
---|---|---|---|---|
@Anthony Luo |
| Director | Y - 5pass SUV |
|
@Megan Spee |
| Director | 5-person liftback |
|
@Nathan Green |
| Mechanical | 3-277 Dodge Grand Caravan |
|
@Ryan Chan |
| Mechanical |
|
|
@Sam Zhang |
| EFS |
|
|
@Tim Gu |
| EFS |
|
|
@Georgia Vachon Westerlund |
| Ops |
|
|
@Yuchen Lin |
| EFS |
|
|
Flightline Team
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
Incident Procedures
Flight Test Timeline
Date/Time | Action | Notes |
---|---|---|
0700 | Start charging batteries 4x 6s 5000mah (pegasus) 3x 3s 4000mah (houston) |
|
0800 | Begin checklists |
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0900 | Briefing @ WARG Bay |
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0930 | Begin loading vehicles |
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1000 | Arrival at Flight Test Location |
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1030 | Flight Test Card #1 + 2: Opflow calib. |
|
1030 | Flight Test Card #3: Houston obstacle avoidance |
|
1200 | Packup |
|
1230 | Lunch |
|
1300 | Debrief |
|
| <> |
|
DEBRIEF
Logs:
Media:
Actual Timeline Recap
Time | Activity | Notes |
---|---|---|
0700 | Battery Charging Began |
|
0905 | Briefing began |
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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. |
Analysis
All log files are available in onedrive, see section above. On Average, ELRS Performance was awesome, while TBS Crossfire was typically transmitting at close to max power, likely due to interference from the RFD900 on the same frequency.
Pegasus Flight(s)
All Pegasus missions were run using LTE, which later failed to connect when attempting the multi-drone photo. It was impossible to takeoff in EKFPosSource MIDDLE, and we only took off in EKFPosSourceLow (GPS mode). Initial YAW tuning on pegasus was quite bad (lots of overshoot), but auto-tuning was able to correct this.
Pegasus did have issues maintaining altitude during transition - it tended to drop ~1m in altitude in translational movement, and had a tendency to level off + continue sliding once the stick returned to center.
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
Autotune
FlowCAL + GPS/non-gps transition
Flow calibration worked as expected
EKF Failures:
10:34:18 : EKFPosSource set to MIDDLE
10:34:33 : EKF3 IMU0 stopped aiding
10:34:33 : EKF3 IMU1 stopped aiding
10:34:33 : EKF3 lane switch 1
10:34:33 : EKF Primary Changed: 1
10:34:33 EKF variance
10:34:33 : EKF Failsafe: changed to land
once landed, all failsafes cleared & position was set back to middle.
Position estimate / IMU2 was still able to provide level landing assistance.
Loiter GPS aided flight
estimated position looks good
No harsh events
Non-gps aided loiter attempt
took-off around 10:47:12 - landed around 10:47:42
Flight path looks good, position estimates were continually given.
EKF IMU stopped aiding messages were given at 10:47:34
EKF Failsafe at 10:47:35.
Had a few seconds of non-gps aided flight? Not sure why the failsafe occured.
Houston Auto Mission(s)
Ran a total of 5 Auto missions attempts, eventually successful in pathing around the object.
4 Batteries were used, and OA distances were adjusted as follows during the FT:
OA_Type: Dijkstra with BendyRuler → BendyRuler
OA_MARGIN_MAX: 5m
OA_BR_LOOKAHEAD: 15m → 10m
AVOID_ACCEL_MAX: 0
AVOID_BEHAVE: 1
AVOID_DIST_MAX: 5m
AVOID_MARGIN: 2m
Attempt #1
Houston was successful in not colliding with an object in the direct flight path.
Houston was unable to successfully path around the object and loitered in circles.
Mission was ended by the PIC.
Attempt #2
Path was updated to move houston further away from the building on waypoints #3 and #4.
Houston successfully avoided a light-post, but was disarmed pre-maturely when PIC wanted to switch to Stab (SB) and accidentally hit Disarm (SA). The drone dropped from an altitude of around 8 meters, no damage.
Orange is 45 degree sector, and green is 90 degre sector.
Notice that the MIN from 45 & 90 is 15 meters (This was the configured OA_BR_LOOKAHEAD).
This may not be correct - the physical distance from the pole was significantly less (visual estimate 1-2m upper end)
Attempt #3
Houston over-flew the building. Auto mission altitude was set to 5m, and was too high.
Attempt #4
HSTN got stuck since it detected the embankment as an obj.
Attempt #5
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?
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.
ExpressLRS
TPwr remained at 10 mW basically the entire flight, maybe 25mW sometimes.
RSSI quite healthy.
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
Action items for next flight test
Try to fix this by recalibrating accelerometer at start of next flight test