"The best of innovations happens when certainty is no longer certain" ~ myself My undertaking of my Ph.D (part-time I might add) was on the premise that I would acquire enough research funding for not only tuition but especially hardware. I didn't think for one minute that I would struggle to get money from my sponsor DENEL, but after what has been coming on the news regarding the company being cash-less , its quite clear that I would have to re-think my strategy on how what I'm going to execute this research with maximum exposure. And by exposure I mean the fact that a Ph.D should propel one to a possible career in academia or research institutes, IF done correctly. That's a BIG IF given that aerospace engineering Ph.D in Africa is not well sought after or even recognized by the rest of the aerospace community, let alone in the field of intelligent flight control .  This is where innovation kicks in. In a big way!!! When you realize it's eit...

Hi, I've looked around the web to get an understanding the setup of the Ardupilot flight modes with a Spektrum DX6 2nd generation and there was none. So I decided to write this blog. The few things to consider when doing this: Please follow the instruction given on the ardupilot webpage . Have the Pixhawk hardware connected to Mission Planner (I have 1.3.50 - Copter V3.5.3)  Use the display bar in the Radio Calibration page as a guide while changing the rate pulse widths on your transmitter. I've used switch D to change the pulse width ranges on channel 5.

So my pixhawk has finally arrived! Now it's time to get to understand the codebase and integrate my algorithms to the flight control suite. I've also gathered a few parts from a research quadcopter. The plan is to have it takeoff and demonstrate that it works!

So I've had to think hard about which route I wanted to take for my research. On one hand, I could go full customized process with every bit of code written by yours truly (including the the hardware design, soldering, testing and integration). This will mean a serious divergence from the primary focus of my research but the high risk could yield immense entrepreneurial satisfaction. I calculated that this route would probably add another 6 months to PhD research. On the other hand, as I've posted before , buy an off-the-shelf flight controller, focus on integrating the peripherals, up-ramp knowledge on the tested code suite and start working on integrating my research algorithms almost immediately. This route is substantially more expensive (Initial capital), but you then have a large community of users to inquire from. I've estimated about 2 month of extra work towards my PhD research. So the decision is now obvious. I've chosen to buy the Pixhawk 2.4.8 first....

I think often times, I have fallen into the trap of reassuring that as long as I put in the hours of grinding sweat and tears, success will come as a consequence. But that hypothesis doesn't hold all to often if you were think of how many people work in plantations but their lives seemed to be getting worse in relative terms to the work of society.  It was quite clear that the hypothesis is either flawed or incomplete. I would like to think that success in not only a measure of how much work you put in but more so on WHAT you're working towards. Taking the example of the typical rice field worker in some village in Taiwan, if the primary thing is to work hard such that you can put food on the table for your family, then perhaps that's not good enough. But if the money, which buys the food for family is to bring about change in your life or in the life of your kids, then education or extramural skills will be the topic of discussion around the dinner table. Then of all the s...

It's amazing how a continuous search at possibilities eventually leads to finding a "needle in a haystack". Introducing the Teensy 3.6 development. It a 32-bit Cortex M4 ARM core with (FPU) at a 1/6th of the price of the Pixhawk (The Pixhawk runs the same chip although has double the Flash memory). Granted, it doesn't have any sensors but man, that's find. Did I also mention that it works straight with arduino code. This means that I've upgraded to the most powerful MCU in the market at the same price as an Arduino Due . Wow! I overcame my shock by going to Robotics in Centurion and getting my hands on this dynamite. It can even run X-plane flight simulation controls in real-time communicating through the USB port! Ok enough ranting and raving! The point is now I can test the embedded algorithms on a similar ARM-based microcontroller as the Pixhawk and conclude the testing and validation up to HILS level with the sensors in the loop (while emulating th...

When will I fly again? I've been asking that question for a while now. After that expensive and silly mistake of loosing my Blade 300 CFX to some uncalibrated mass balancing, the wind of excitement was whiffed out of my spirit. I must say, this has allowed me to refocus my energies on the helicopter simulation model and how it should be modeled such that the research of the neural network algorithms could be easily prototyped and embedded into an autopilot software suite for HILS and flight testing. I must say, I feel like I've made quite a bit of progress on this front. Even though my spirit is itching to get something flying in the sky, the notion that I'm getting closer to creating a simulation environment where these algorithms can be tested, explored and refined for flight testing. I'm also grateful that during this time, my company has agreed to fund my research and I now the ability to procure the items that I need to properly get this research off the grou...

It was time to decide. Playing small robots and chiefs with the likes of Arduino and the soldering iron was a nice learning curve but it had to come to an end. The bigger objective of this research was to integrate intelligent algorithm on a platform that was accepted by most engineers and hobbyists. The learning pain will be great, but the support community will be there to help. The need to do things properly and start from a good foundation given the experimental nature of this research is key. It's clear there will be limitations, but what's obvious is that whatever software I build will be implemented on an architecture that's continously changing and being upgraded due to the fast changing nature of current drone industry. So the sooner I get into this game properly, the better it will be for future algorithms. Given the function of software in the loop, implementing a whole range of algorithm will now become a breeze. The prospect of using cheaper materials to...

Don't get me wrong. I like Mathworks products, specifically MATLAB and the suite of control toolboxes. But for curse of being a super monopoly software is that, in order to make profit to drive software updates (which is now expected to be at least twice a year on most toolboxes), the focus is on the popular user requirements. This is often based on academia and research houses which often doesn't deal with hardware or firmware. In so doing, a large percentage of professional engineers productivity is directly coupled to the level of expertise of the analysis tool rather than the process upon which the product is based. Consequently, the poorer or bloated the tool, the slower can an engineer develop a product at lower cost. Unfortunately, the reliance on more powerful machines is the way to circumvent to problem. Just run the bloated simulation fast enough that's it's on longer noticeable to the designer. But is that engineering design? Is not the whole point to i...

Posted by Chris Anderson on April 25, 2017 at 7:00am  View Blog . The PX4/Dronecode team and Drotek have been working on the next generation of Pixhawk autopilots, and you can now see a preview of that with the Pixhawk 3 Pro . It's based on the new PX4 FMU4 Pro standard, which includes a full suite of next-generation sensors and and the more powerful STM32F469 processor. It's designed for the Dronecode/PX4 flight software, which is the current official Pixhawk standard. The board is currently in developer release, but will be taken out of beta after testing is complete in the next month or two. All details are  here  (and below): ------------------ Introduction FMUv4-PRO takes input from all of the Pixhawk stakeholders; end users, developers, researchers and manufacturing partners. Goals for this iteration of the platform are: – An integrated, single-board flight controller for space constrained applications – A modular multi-board flight controller for ...

So part of my PhD deliverable is to develop a hardware-in-the-loop simulation model such that the entire suite of software can be tested with a high-fidelity simulation model that mimics the sensors such as the IMU and GPS units. Eventhough I've finalized the simulation model of a 2m glider, the prize is to have miniature helicopter model implemented. The following makes use of the PC only for visual aid and the rest of the simulation. Potentially, although low priority, the matlab visual could be connected to Flight Gear and visualize a 3D model as one. The use of the transmitter and receiver will only to act as control inputs which are then converted to airframe deflections.

So I published a post a few days ago on attempting to write a complete conference paper in 20 hours. I must say, I didn't entirely start from scratch. I had jotted down some ideas, the content and the strategy on what to write was pretty clear in my mind. But yet, we all know that even at this point, conceiving a solid journal paper (6-page mind you) is still a considerable effort. So it came down to tools. I must say I've grown more fonder of the ShareLatex over the past few months. If it wasn't for this online Latex compiling and viewing tool and the use of Mendeley , I wouldn't be writing this post to say that pretty much completed my first journal paper since my M.sc in 2010. It's such a liberating feeling to know that I've got an opportunity to present my thoughts and ideas again. The past two days, I decided to work from home and even though I have other distractions (a two year old monkey a.k.a my son Sam), sitting in that garden and jotting do...

They say that you need to have a vision for yourself. You need to have intrinsic motivation that transcends your current reality and even beyond what makes sense to others around you. I've decided to put together a control system journal paper by using just 20 hours. Wait... what!?! Yep. That's right. Why not? If you try you'll never know! A famous author once said. "It's not what the vision is, it's what the vision does." Even if I don't pull if off, or the submission is rejected and thrown into the trash, the experience will stay and boy will it motivate me to try again! Aluta Continua!

Here at  Make:  we see new, ingenious projects from our community every day. Many of these are made possible by the use of development boards. However, if you’re new to the subject, it can be confusing to parse out the differences between boards and the advantages of using one over another. We’ve created this super simple guide to help you get started. Then, when you’re ready check out  Arduino Uno  and  Raspberry Pi  Starter Kits, which come with all the goodies you need for your inaugural projects. Not sure you want all those peripherals yet? Start with the essentials: Grab the board of your choice and bring yourself up to speed with our  Getting Started With  series for  Arduino  and for  Raspberry Pi . Courtesy of  Tech Uni What is the difference between the two? An Arduino is a microcontroller motherboard. A microcontroller is a simple computer that can run one program at a time, over and ov...

This post is definitely not a DIY answer the question itself full stop but rather food for thought for one who has started the journey on discovering their research tentacles and discover the topic on which day will spend at least 5000 hours all their lives. No one would tell you that academically you should think of a topic that will be based on some form of literature review. But it's very difficult to even fathom what that even means, does it mean that based on the literature you now somehow have an expert helicopter view on everybody's research and can completely and utterly decimate their rationale for doing that particular research hence justifying your existence on why you should pursue your particular research, or does it mean that you now have complete and utter disregard for other people's work hence justifying yours once again. So one can now ask the following questions. Can I prove that my research add to the core values that I'm trying to live by or even...

So as some of you may know I've decided to bite the bullet and study for my doctor of philosophy degree. Now one may think that as a married man, and a father of a 2 year old crazy son, married to a compulsive and completely unreasonable spouse common man not even attempt to do any further studies. Yet here we are, I've managed to go over the hurdle of producing the draft of 100+ citation literature review and come with a five year plan on how I'm going to execute this monster. In the last few months, it's been evident that this is not gonna be an easy Road. The pressures of work havent subsided, Life As a Christian has taken on a few responsibilities, my sister has emigrated to Portugal leaving me to take care of my lovely mother, and my dad is obviously still requiring my help when it comes to his to his business. So given all that's it's clear that a five-year plan is very optimistic. What doesn't hurt you makes you stronger or you just Die Trying... H...

Re: fast communication between two arduinos #9 Sep 07, 2015, 05:06 pm Thanks guys, At the end I re-Checked the I2C protocol and understood it can only pass Chars ether by array or singles and managed to work with the code from here: http://ift.tt/1DAeWM4 and created my version to pass a 4 digit code and it work quite fast (less than 1ms). // Wire Master Reader int x,y; #include <Wire.h> void setup() {   Wire.begin();        // join i2c bus (address optional for master)   Serial.begin(115200);  // start serial for output } void loop() {   Wire.requestFrom(2, 6);    // request 6 bytes from slave device #2      int a = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character      int b = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character      int c = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character      int d = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character ...

South Korea’s National Standard on Drones The Korean Agency for Technology & Standards (KATS) of the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy said that it announced the world’s first national standard on drones on December 30. The national standard has the title of KSW9000: Classification & Terms of Unmanned Aircraft Systems. It provides the definition of terms regarding 52 types of drones, such as large unmanned aircraft and remotely controlled drones, along with six categories of classification based on operating altitudes, maximum takeoff weights, kinetic energy, etc. According to the standard, drones can be classified into five categories based on their maximum takeoff weights, ranging from 2 kg or less to more than 600 kg. In addition, those with a dead weight of 150 kg or less are dubbed unmanned powered aerial vehicles, those with a dead weight of more than 150 kg and up to 600 kg are called midsize unmanned aircraft and the others are classified as large u...

So the time had come for me to test the gopro on the Heli and answer a couple of questions. One that was answered quite quickly was how stable was the configuration. It turned out to be quite stable after all. Although attaching the camera at the nose of airframe makes contro in windy weather quite intricate. I had a couple of close shaves. The eventual footage didn't produce much desired results although that was expected as not much thinking what into the vibration isolation of the video camera. The maiden flight was to see if everything will work as expected. One could potential use a vibration removal video editor although that it last resort. Accumulated flight time: 94min