2025-01-06 W25 Programme Sync

Owned by Georgia Vachon Westerlund
Last updated: yesterday at 03:14 by Daniel Puratich
5 min read

Introduction

Attendance

  • @Georgia Vachon Westerlund

  • @Daniel Puratich

  • @Nathan Green

  • @Evan Janakievski

  • @Meghan Dang

  • @Roni Kant

  • @Ryan Scomazzon

  • @Derek Tang

  • @Smile Khatri

  • @Alison Thompson

  • @Maxwell Lou

  • @Emma Chan

  • @Megan Spee

  • @Tong Zhang

Preface

  • Meeting is intended for leadership team to align on the path forward toward competition and beyond.

  • All are welcome to attend this meeting to give opinions and listen in!

  • This is the first meeting on W25 and it’s outcomes will be used to drive timelines for all subteams for all programmes for the coming term.

    • Director an lead syncs occur after this and will focus on how individual subteams fit into this picture.

Competition Logistics

Comp Roster Selection

Comp Logistics Sync

  • Happening during Leads meeting slot next week → Tuesday, Jan 14 @ 9pm EST

  • Will discuss the roster selection in more detail

  • Will discuss comp logistic timelines for this term

  • All are encouraged to attend!

AEAC Phase 1

  • Design paper is due January 15 @ 5 PM EST

    • Links can be found here

  • Aiming to have a first draft completed by this Friday

  • Looking for support from people on autonomy to write the mapping sections

  • Please let me know if you’d like to help out!

AEAC Phase 2

Task 1: Approach

New Testing Airframe

  • Thoughts on using a secondary airframe, something Houston sized (smaller than peggy), for Task 1?

    • Multiple airframes is allowed for comp

    • Derisks Task 1 by using a cheaper airframe for testing and at competition

    • Allows us to remove autonomy system from Pegasus

  • Bringing up a CF airframe, 7” or 10” prop range, could allow us to learn how to tune as well

    • Houston’s current plastic airframe is very vibey and makes tuning difficult.

  • Is it too late to bring up a new airframe?

  • We have two Pegasus airframes right now so could use one for task one and other for task two

    • downside is the cost of pegasus airframe is a risk when we talk about learning how to do tuning

    • this is viable for competition potentially

    • transporting multiple airframes is not optimal

    • task one is very low risk so justification is weak here

    • just doing one peggy at comp seems best

  • Effort going into learning how to tune and learning how to bring up the airframe on this new dev kit

    • this is essentially a new program, but should be worth

    • this is important for competition

    • December 14th FT reveals importance of tuning for this system!

    • Falls under EFS maybe?

    • Are there any DRIs available for this?

    • Timeline for learning how to tune:

      • we need good tunes for competition

        • end of January to have some experimenting with tuning under our belt

      • learn to tune on the COTS airframe early on

      • @Derek Tang @Roni Kant to ask if they have interested members to get involved here

        • we can follow up in

      • @Evan Janakievski can help out on weekends

      • @Nathan Green @Georgia Vachon Westerlund to order dev kit

    • success criteria? specified in flight test documentation

Autonomy Software

  • Autonomy System Flight Testing Schedule

    • Definition of minimum viable system should be aligned upon

    • what have we done since last term?

      • we have individual portions coded, putting it together needs to work

    • Follow up next comp sync after director sync will be ideal

Task 2: Pegasus Payload Redesign

Water System Improvements

  • December 14th FT revealed some challenges with the current system (fixed pump solution).

  • Scoop solution has been ruled out due to leaking issues.

  • What is path forward toward mechanical solution

    • Fixing leaks in tank

    • concept: remove necessity of landing on barrel by hanging pump and tube on a winch that hangs down below the drone

      • more mech engineering time

        • test pumps ability to pump upwards while engineering this solution

          • datasheet says 3.5m max lift height

          • want this to hang down ~ 1 meter ? TBD

        • siphon effects should be considered

          • look into the valve on servo thing

          • and other effects

          • gravity

          • shouldn’t run pump dry for extended periods of time

      • derisks crashing at competition

      • EE requirements

        • would require a servo for the winch in addition to the in and out pump

        • servo is simple

        • avoid scope creep in water controller might be nice

    • concept: improve tuning and see if landing is still viable

      • still sketchy because of wind and snag points on the frame and barrel

Tuning

  • Pegasus 2 tuning plan.

    • Need to do more learning here, see above section

    • might be hard to tune if we have payload of varying weight (water weight) underneath

Eclipse Fixed Wing Timeline

  • Pilot training foam plane timelines

    • @Jerry Tian @Manasva Katyal are not here, but the timelines need to be pushed

  • Mechanical simulation: is it overweight?

    • 3.8kg on frame

      • no empenage

      • has batts and motors

      • no other electronics

      • weight will likely exceed 5kg

    • wing

      • wing area was increased

      • motor is large

      • manufacturing with wings is going to be difficult knowledge transfer wise

    • frame

      • components exist for it, mostly putting it together

      • new tailboom

  • timeline

    • end of january might be a stretch, maybe close, to finish mech wise

      • end of February is safer

    • there’s too many people to assign to just pegasus on this team so eclipse is good to assign people to as a backburner R&D project

VTOL Plan

  • Not start on it this term

    • because eclipse is behind.

    • getting eclipse to fly this term is important to unblock doing vtol

  • If this is something we are going to be doing then it will need more attention following the eclipse program. Else we will need to focus on maintaining a quadcopter platform into 2026 competition?

    • Current director’s will all be stepping down post comp so our efforts toward managing VTOL will be minimal, either the next generation should step up into this program or we should align on not driving it.

    • is there interest in doing this as a program?

      • doing it is very difficult and people need to be passionate about it to even stand a chance

      • this is kind of an open team direction question

      • mech interest form

        • most ppl said they want to work on vtol on mech

      • ee involvement in airside

        • eclipse and vtol have more ee opportunity baked in

      • regular members like the idea, directors are kind of on board, what we are looking for are those kind of middle people (upcoming leads, senior members, etc) who are going to become owners of the programs and be there to drive meetings etc.

        • we want to tell you guys this is the time/opportunity for if you are interested to start taking ownership!

  • if we dont do VTOL, what do we do?

    • is doing another multirotor

    • Are we done with multi-rotor?

      • we need to get good at tuning

      • flying pegasus is still scary

    • need something new to keep senior members interested

      • maybe doesn’t need to be for competition

      • VTOL could be an R&D thing

      • summer term is a good time

  • scope vtol properly at end of this term

    • make scale of VTOL be smaller than ICARUS

    • can be kept around as an R&D project