Saturday May 21, 2022

Meeting Minutes

Daniel: Goals - Design a flight controller that can support multicopter, fixed-wing, and other aircraft types while following all safety and legal directives 

Stage 1 - Brainstorming Different Ideas on the ground (to be turned into requirements later…)

Daniel

• Arm/Disarm Mechanism

• Speaker

• Temperature sensor/thermistor for battery

• IMU (or multiple)

• SD Card reader (or onboard non-volatile data storage)

• ESD Protection

• Debugging button (GPIO)

Aadi

• USB input for power and programming

  • On chip debugging? -> OpenOCD? (on nucleo you can just plug in usb cable?)

  • Something to eliminate external programmer. (or even just a shield)?

Chris

• Keep two chips (Safety and Autopilot) - discussion for second half

• Having contingency in case something fails

Dhruv

• Inter-board communication protocol 

• Data-Link

• Test-Points for debugging

• Spare peripherals?

• LED Strip support.

• Low EMI

• Reset Button

Anthony

• Over-voltage/current protection [user input protection]

• Telemetry 

• Battery monitoring

• Locking/Proper connectors (non-reversible, standardized)

• Isolated mounting pads?

• High voltage outputs // dc motor controller?

• Anti-Vibration mounting support?

• Case // cooling ? (in case we are sitting in super hot sun/hot day?)

Aidan

• 8 (DShot) motor outputs

• 3 axis gimbal support

• GPS Support

• Logging (non-volatile data storage)

• Debugging connector. (serial output?)

  • Status display?

• Tele-op input

• Servo Outputs for fixed wing.

• Flash storage for configuration information (

  • Can update things without re-flashing

Kevin

• High voltage support (wide input voltage range)?

• Redundant power connectors (in case they come out in flight)

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Sahil

• Status LED’s

Ryan

• Power pass through?

• :D

Darwin

• Airspeed/Pressure/Pitot/other kinds of sensors?

• Pressure/flow sensor (for gas power)

• Polarity markings?

  • Better silkscreen

 Steven

• Mounting?

  • Size of physical dimensions 

    • Don’t be too big….? 

    • Don’t be too tall so it can (maybe) fit between plates?

      • -> care about wire outputs

  • Caseable

  • 4 holes should be sufficient to mount.

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Stage 2: Discussion about requirements! Categorization and removal…. _> listed here are final things

Arm/Disarm Support

• Just needs to be supported

Buzzer

• Minimum requirements to beep / buzz tones.

• Ideally takes GPIO and just beeps it out.

• Needs to be loud enough to help locate the drone in recovery operations?

• Not ideal to have audible songs since that will add rigidity regarding micro selection

LED’s

• Status LED’s on the board?

  • Need to be different colours -> make them consistent.

• MULTICOLOR

Display (Onboard)

• On the flight controller, or plugged into the board, easily interfacing with the FC.

• Pinouts? (Takes many peripherals) -> not if it’s an i2c display

• Can this data be taken care of by something else?

  • Serial / Telemetry cover the use case of this?

Battery Monitoring

• Some way of monitoring Battery health & status.

IMU

• Non negotiable

Non-Volatile Data Storage

• 100% yes - sahil

Power Architecture [? unopened question ?]

• Accept USB for power?

• Capable of hotplug usb while ZP is powered off the battery

• Wide range of input voltages?

  • Be able to accept 5/12/24v/36v and ZP will work.

  • Wide input could be PDB?

USB Debugging [?]

• FTPI Chips not easy to get…

• Nice to have, but not blocking.

  • So design for it, but don’t be ready to have it here.

Fallback in case of system failure (Two micros or not)

• Separate board for extra sensor breakouts?

• Tldr: one chip.

Interboard communication

• Has to happen.

12 motor outputs / servo / other actuator

• Why stop at 8?

  • This can include srevos + gimbals

• Includes gimbal/servo

GPS

• Yes no contention, legal requirement

Debugging output

• Data stream to computer other than LED or Buzzers.

• SWO (Serial Wire Output) or UART

Tele-op Input

• Yes, has to exist

DataLink to ground

• Yes, has to exist. Needs GPS link.

VTX

• Yes, also has to exist.

Debugging Test Points (not a firm requirement)

• Don’t want test points that go to headers.

Over Voltage/Current // User Input Protection

• No reason not to include?

• No reason not to include on up to 24V, but for 5V / 3.3V maybe yes

• Reverse Polarity Protection

Locking, non-reversible connectors

• Timeline: 

• Want footprint to support header and locking.

• Or large banks of breakouts?

• Requirement for Rev2 or Comp version, not for dev/breakout version.

Caseable

• Yup

Power output for peripheral devices?

• See ryan

• Needs power output protection? ? ? 

DC Motor Output/High Voltage

• No.

LED Driver (External led’s)

• Nav lights yes, jus thow far to go?

Sensor Breakouts (Barometer, Pitot, Airspeed, IMU, GPS.)

• Make sure has adc’s or smth

• Environment Detection

Mounting Holes

• Supporting Anti-Vibration mounting.

ESD Protecc

• Hot plug protection?

Flash?

• External things maybe

[Debug Shield] Debugging Buttons, Reset Switch

• Easy way to debug something.

• Yes, but be careful about buttons when flying?

• Can we get a tiny shield connector to an external board?

• DNP Reset on Prod

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Guidelines

Redundant Power Connectors // locking connectors

• YES (so we don’t have a jumper unplug?)

• Some way to keep power in in-case of vibration, getting caught.

Small Footprint

Low Profile

Polarity Markings

Easy to Solder

Extra Sensor Breakouts.