2024-10-12 Houston Geolocation Test

Goals for this test

• Test Geolocation system on Houston

  • Action items before this flight test (also on Asana)

    • RPi killswitch config

    • Test fly Houston and make sure can fly

  • This test requires

    • driving to wrestrc

    • Integrate and test hardware leading up to this

      • RPi integration

    • Autonomy preparation

      • Geolocation software exists and will be run on Houston

      • Auto code for geolocation was successfully ground tested on houston the day before 10-05 flight test

  • Try to isolate altitude, flight pass-by speed, and distance from take-off/home location as variables for our testing geolocation accuracy

    • Will be important to determine altitude and speed at which we scan for hotspots later in comp

Checklist

• Ground test geolocation on Oct 10, 2024 – @Balaji Leninrajan

  • Make sure images log, make sure there are predictions and bounding boxes

  • Make sure we can connect to the Pixhawk

    • On the Rpi RevB board, connect (rpi → pixhawk): + to +, - to -, and S to -

    • Red LED on Rpi RevB board should turn on briefly when running echo 1 < /dev/ttyAMA0

  • Bring the drone outside the bay into SDC hallway should be enough to get GPS lock and test geolocation

    • The geolocation log should have some numbers and other things, or error saying drone is underground

Attendees

Please put your name here if you are attending this flight test

• @Sam Zhang - FTC

• @Daniel Puratich - management support

• @Nathan Green - pilot

• @Balaji Leninrajan – Autonomy

• @Tochi Okoro - Autonomy

• @Vyomm Khanna - Autonomy

• @Smile Khatri - Mech lead + driver

• @Evan Zhao - Autonomy

Flight Test Timeline

• Start charging Houston batteries at 9am

• Briefing 9:30am

• Leave Bay 10am

• Debrief starts at 12pm

• Done 1pm

Debrief

Timeline:

10:30 Left bay

11:00 Set up autonomy script

11:10 Issues with control inputs not showing up on Mission Planner - model match was off

12:00 Fixed issue and started flying

1:00 Back at bay and debrief

• Good

  • Tested at field near CIF

  • Flew Houston and successfully got data for geolocation

• Not good (Some action items)

  • No backup of Houston params even though it worked earlier?

  • Mechanical - RPi loose & bolts coming out

  • Autonomy - needs to set up auto script so we don’t need to re-run script after every power cycle

  • Need to book WRESTRC next time lol & remember can’t pick up vehicle keys during long weekend

• Flights

  • Flight 1: Took off on top of landing pad

  • Flight 2: Took off around 30m in the 10 o’clock direction from the landing pad

  • Flight 3: Took off around 3 meters in front of the landing pad

• Landing pad location stayed constant throughout the 3 flights

• Autonomy Geolocation Data Analysis here

  • Geolocation worked - have the data, images

• Some major discrepancies with first log - started from landing pad, all values not zero?

• Further analysis is required using GPS logs from pixhawk - compare