2024-10-26 Houston Obstacle Avoidance

Owned by Daniel Puratich
Last updated: 2024-10-27 by Ishman Mann
1 min read

Attendees

  • @Andrew Shum

  • @Evan Janakievski

  • @Vyomm Khanna

  • @Ishman Mann for 27 Oct

 

 

 

Not Attending

  • @Daniel Puratich

 

 

 

Testing Plan

  • What are we testing

 

 

 

Test 1: Test Basic Obstacle Avoidance

Procedure

Goals / Objectives

Knockoff Criteria

  1. Set waypoints

  • Create a simple path for the drone to follow.

 

  1. Run main obstacle avoidance script

 

 

  1. Set up the obstacle in course

 

 

  1. Battery plugged in

  • Mission planner no pre-arm warning

  • make sure AUTO is in one of the flight mode

 

  1. Bring the drone to the flightline

  • toggle safety switch

 

  1. Enable logging

 

 

  1. Arm the drone in AUTO

 

 

  1. Let drone start flying through waypoints in AUTO

 

  • Drone unstable

  • unable to establish VLOS

  • Timer threshold:

  • flight time exceeded 5 min.

  • VBatt below safety threshold: 10V

  •  

  • QLAND immediately, disarm when landed.

  •  

  • Recover drone & gather state of batteries

  •  

  • Lost link

    • Follow lost link procedures. Maintain vlos if possible.

    • Contact necessary local authorities.

  1. Wait for drone to approach the obstacle

 

 

  1. Ensure that drone stops and enters LOITER mode when detect object

  • Ensure the drone stops ~10m away from obstacle.

  • Ensure drone switches to LOITER mode upon detecting obstacle.

If the drone does not stop within 10m of the person and obstacle:

  • The person holding the obstacle steps out of flight path immediately.

  • Pilot manually intervenes and skips to Step 13 (landing and disarming drone).

  1. Remove the obstacle from the flight path and ensure the drone reenters AUTO mode

  • Ensure the drone resumes its mission.

  • Ensure drone switches to AUTO mode upon obstacle removal.

If drone does not resume to landing waypoint

  • Pilot manually takes over and proceeds to Step 13 (landing and disarming drone).

  1. Drone hovers over the 2nd waypoint (the landing waypoint)

  •  Ensure drone completes the mission.

 

  1. Pilot manually lands drone

 

 

  1. Disarm the drone

  • disarm the drone, Toggle safety switch

 

Timeline

  • Arrive bay 10:30am

    • download guided mode script onto rpi as well as test with mission planner

  • Leave bay 11:15am

  • arrived at cif field 11:30

  • tested auto/guided/auto mode switch 11:40

  • leave cif 12pm

 

 

 

Debrief

  • what happened?

  • tested guided mode script

    • Script flying auto mission as planned.

      • Can not determine whether it successfully switched to guided mode as script was killed before it could switch.

      • Switched to RTL half way through mission as pedestrians wandered into future path of drone

    • Main issue was that the kill-switch did not interrupt the script and the drone continued flying.

    • Pilot cannot control drone or switch modes.

    • Killing script with ^C also did not work - script killed but drone continues to fly.

      • Need a way to stop flying when script is killed. i.e. switch to loiter mode if KeyboardInterrupt

    • Switch to RTL using mission planner and drone landed safely

    • Ended flight test, did not test obstacle avoidance, pi loose, killswitch may not work, returned to bay.

    •  

  • Issues:

    • Vibe issues for Raspberry Screws and Nuts

      • Solution get locknuts and threadlocker

    • Raspberry Pi interface came loose, not sure reasoning

      • Could be vibe and contact with usb cable from CV camera

    • When RPI killswitch cuts communication between Pixhawk and PI we believe is what prohibited killing the script with ^C from working

  • Changes for future:

    • Have a smaller size mission for easier proof of concept - 10 m square instead of 25 m square