2024-11-02 Competition Flight Test

Planning

Scope

  • Houston

    • Testing new camera

      • We have a non-global shutter RPi Camera we need to test on the drone

      • @Nathan Green has a script to try

      • Autonomy should try geolocation as well, need to get script ready

      • Should acquire data of just images (with nothing overlayed) so we can test algorithms

      • Note: Geolocation with the CV camera will be tested FIRST as it requires more setup. Then the CV camera will be swapped out for the IR camera, and the IR camera will be used to capture images.

  • Dallas

    • Tracking Antenna Test

      • See if it works

      • Dallas is usable for this because it has similar ELRS setup to Pegasus 2

  • Pegasus 2

    • Tuning

      • Whatever tuning we want to do to be sure it flies comfortably!

      • Likely running autotune again.

    • Air Range Test

      • For ELRS mavlink and our video system

      • Both systems should be ground tested first of course for range.

    • Flight Hours

      • We should build flight hours on the airframe to build confidence in it’s functionality!

  • Pegasus 1

    • Top Speed Test

      • We should try pushing the speed on this airframe to see how fast it can go

      • We already have a good tune for Pegasus 1

    • Stretch RQ: Cabin-less flight.

      • Evaluate tune / control efficiency of with cabin vs without cabin, without re-tuning.

        • (I’m wondering how much adding water to the drone as a payload will affect our tune).

 

 

 

 

Timeline

See Calendar for high level plan.

  • 9am pancakes formally starts, feel free to pullup early!!

  • 10am flight testing team meets at the bay for briefing, packing, and battery charging

  • 11am leave for WRESTRC

  • 11:30am start pegasus 1 flight

  • 12:00am start pegasus 2 flight

  • 12:30am start houston flight

  • 1:30pm start dallas flight

  • 2:20pm leave wrestrc for costco

  • 2:45pm leave costco for bay

  • 3pm team photo

  • 3:30pm start defrief

 

 

 

 

Attendees

People pulling up for the test:

  1. @Daniel Puratich

  2. @Anthony Luo

  3. @Alison Thompson

  4. @Kenny Na

  5. @Georgia Vachon Westerlund

  6. @Meghan Dang

  7. @Andrew Chai

  8. @Omer Sajid

  9. @Evan Janakievski

  10. @Jeremy Zheng

  11. @Sam Zhang

  12. @Tochi Okoro

  13. @Maxwell Lou

  14. @Shawn Yang

  15. @Yuchen Lin

  16. @Megan Spee

  17. @Jerry Tian

  18. @Larry Pan

  19. @Smile Khatri

  20. @Ryan Scomazzon

  21. @Balaji Leninrajan

  22. Aidan Bowers (Advisor)

  23. @Ian Van Den Steen

  24. @Camilo Artigas Alos

  25. @Vyomm Khanna

  26. @Nathan Green

  27. @Victoria Gee

  28. @Michael Botros

  29. @Leonardo Zhou

  30. @Thushanth Parameswaran

  31. @Polly Liu

  32. @Benson Yan

  33. @Bruce Wang

  34. @Ryan Chan

  35. @Catherine Jin

 

 

 

 

Car Situation

  1. SDC Truck → Both Peggy’s and FT Box, five people

  2. Rav 4 → five people & Houston & Dallas

  3. Anthony Luo Car → Five People

  4. Alison Thompson → five people

  5. Megan Spee → five people

  6. Ryan Scomazzon → unknown

  7. Aidan Bowers → unknown

  8. Evan Janakievski → five people

  9. Michael Botros → unknown

  10. Ryan Chan → 4 people

 

 

 

 

Key People Not Attending

If you’re directly involved in this stuff and cannot make this test please note it here. All onsite FTCs and subteam leads should fill this out please.

  • @Vibhinn Gautam

  • @Folarin Fatola (Unlicensed)

  • @Mihir Gupta

 

 

 

 

 

Debrief

Timeline

  • Batteries started charging at 9:30 for 6s, 3s batteries charged day before

  • Left bay at 11

  • Peggy 1 Speed Test

    • Top speed acheived was 21.2 m/s

      • Previous top speed was 18 m/s

    • Lost a little altitude during flight

  • Peggy 2 Test

    • Tuned seemed ok, but there was a lot of braking -Nathan

    • 1.2 km range

      • 250 mw

      • 98% link quality

    • Bad things:

      • Harsh braking

        • Will retune when payload is complete

      • Wobbling while descending

      • Could move people or take off location to have more distance between drone and people

  • Houston IR Camera Test

    • Attempted to get data for IR at many altitudes

    • Bad:

      • Photos are all white

        • Could be from sun overexposing, bad tune on camera, cable quality

      • RFD disconnect at 50 m

      • Pi interface came loose in flight

      • The CV camera installed was not correct

      • Pilot error on landing after RFD disconnect, tipped over and props are scratched on the end

  • Tracking antenna

    • On 2024-11-01 tested the code and simulation in Ardupilot with Houston

    • Tested with Dallas at flight test (as it is similar to Pegasus 2)

    • No link with MavProxy

    • Parameters changed for Dallas:

      • Needed to reconfigure for outdoor flight

        • AHRS params

        • GPS for velocity, rather than Op Flow

        • Etc

    • Dallas errors:

      • Frame type unknown error

Issues

  • Dallas issues

    • Frame type unknown error

  • Houston CV Camera issues

Action Items

  • Reconfigure Dallas

  • Check Houston params

  • Why was Peggy 1 losing altitude during high speed test

  • RFD disconnect issue

  • Reconfigure OSD on Peggy 2

  • Model matching??