Skip to main content

Autopilot Flight Test #3

deadband diagram
deadband diagram (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Managed to squeeze another flight test on Sunday morning (the usual madness occurred afterwards). Had about 7 - 8 hand launches to test the pitch autopilot with the gyro measurements integrated in the PID loop. It was quite that some adjustment to the how these inputs are being used was needed. So after each landing, adjustment to the gains was made.

The erratic nature of the control requires a deadband filter approach which would enable the airframe to settle on a particular flight path naturally (restoring motion). A crude logic was implemented and tested and seemed to work although further test will need to confirm such approach. From a kinematics point of view, it makes sense and prevents excessive servo control usage which decreases the life of the part dramatically.

Once confirmation that the logic is sound, the same approach will be made on the roll and speed autopilots which will allow us in the next 2-3 weeks move towards heading lock control using GPS readings and Altitude Control using the pitch and speed autopilot. But if we get the 'go-ahead' to move, then all tests might be offset by a month (sigh).

Stay tuned!

Related articles

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 December 2014 at 14:24

    I have go through your site,If you want to know more about this please visit our blog:-I've been flying DJI Phantoms Drone Repair Service since day one. I've got a deposit with UAV Direct Best Police Drone for the DJI Inspire 1. My question is-- do you think the "optical flow sensor" will help eliminate "flyaways?" It should, you would think, because it serves as a backup to the GPS.Tower inspection drone Now here's another question-- do you think the "optical flow control" technology will uav autopilot show up on the next generation DJI Phantom? I bet it does, although the guys at UAVDirect who seem pretty tight with DJI couldn't say for sure. Exciting times in the drone business anyway!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown2 February 2015 at 13:41

    I have gone through your post . It is very informative. I would like to share this.

    It is without doubt that the Phantom Drone has renewed interest in the use of technology in social security. The New Phantom drone is exceptional in many ways indeed. The fpv transmitter will need to be improved as it will help the persons sending and receiving data. It is therefore of big importance that the drone autopilot keeps in mind that the signal sending should be full of clarity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown2 February 2015 at 13:41

    I have gone through your post . It is very informative. I would like to share this.

    It is without doubt that the Phantom Drone has renewed interest in the use of technology in social security. The New Phantom drone is exceptional in many ways indeed. The fpv transmitter will need to be improved as it will help the persons sending and receiving data. It is therefore of big importance that the drone autopilot keeps in mind that the signal sending should be full of clarity.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Setting up the Tarot T4-3D gimbal on the Pixhawk 2.4.8 with Specktrum dx6 Gen2 toggle switch

So i took the challenge of setting up the Tarot gimbal not just for inherent stable video footage but also the flexibility of controlling it from the radio control. However, I encountered quite a few challenges which made me aware that I'm not the one only in this battle . It's quite clear that the setup of the Tarot gimbal using its own software is completely different from how it's been described in the Ardupilot/Arducopter webpage and in mission Planner. In Mission Planner and it's associated site makes one believe that it should be done through software, only to realize that in actual fact the setup is more complex than that.  After two evenings of trying various combinations, I realized the getting the pixhawk Aux channels to communicate with the T4 gimbal requires the following steps: - The Pixhawk Pin9 (Aux1) needed to be activated to pass through user-chosen channel from the transmitter. For the Dx6 Gen2 it was the channel 6, which can assigned the
2 comments
Read more

Matlab to C/C++ code development - Some learning points

Over the last few years, the engineers at the company have invested both their time and sleepless nights in formulating a process for the development of Machine learning algorithms that will satisfy real-time constraints with minimal RAM usage. This is quite a tall task as per default, that would force one to do their development directly in C language. Although that seems like the right choice, the downside is the direct correlation of the debugging time with algorithm complexity.  Such a time could have been rather used in optimizing the algorithm within the MATLAB environment which has excellent tools for the analysis, plotting and debugging. So it was decided to rather learn the Code generation process with the hope that future algorithm could be designed in a similar fashion without the hassle of the compiler-specific run-time issues. The development of this machine learning algorithm would eventually be implemented in a 32bit, 160Mhz speed, 260KB RAM microcontroller.
1 comment
Read more

The hard climb of innovation

For the last couple of months, our design team has been hard at work at detail development of our drone concept which we hope to make public early 2021. These have been unprecedented times with so many changes within our company: people moving countries, stuck at airports, universities closing and transitioning to online classes and exams; all in the space of one year! Nevertheless, one of the fundamental challenges facing the drone industry in developing countries next year, is how to operate within an environment where shipping of critical parts (amongst other things) has been disrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic. If the most critical items (propellers, batteries, sensors, etc. ) of the system are also associated with the longest lead time, this has a significant impact on the operating cost and service coverage that can be achieved. Unfortunately, there's no easy way of solving this issue except if it was envisioned as part of the development process. But this is seldom the ca
Post a Comment
Read more