You can be in a situation where you have every right (and power) to condemn someone for their wrongdoing, but you pause. The person could even concede that he/she should have known better and is gracefully willing to take the punishment, whatever it might be, but you pause. Then in the mist of your rage, you introspect to realize, you could have been YOU on the other side of the table, except through varying (often complex) circumstances. Apathy is often what is being shun down upon in most leadership/christian books, yet in practice it's the very trait that is admired for someone who is decisive and 'getting the job done'. The assumption in believing that Old testament prophets were not apathetic towards the conquered nations is both naive and short-sighted. Not that I have any experience in this, but it's pretty difficult to cut someone's head off, if you're feeling sorry for him (unless you're really twisted upstairs). Back to my story... As some...

So one of the main objectives of my PhD research was to achieve the difficult task of developing a learning algorithm for machine learning ( RBF neural networks to be more specific) applications, that would enable the prediction of drone propeller damage in real-time AND without altering the bought-out flight controller ( DJI Naza , APM , Pixhawk , etc...). The only way it could achieve that was by analyzing the outputs of the flight controller sensors and learn when a fault would occur. Well, I believe I'm getting closer to this objective (submission is Nov 2019). I've decided to include the two figures below which illustrates the training process (0.2 sec on desktop) and prediction time (0.008 sec) and the accuracy to the true dynamics of the quadcopter drone. In this case the pitch dynamics are being predicted. Although noise hasn't been introduced, it's quite clear from the graphs, that the learning algorithm has enabled the RBF network to accurately capture th...

So I got the good news last Friday from the IFAC System identification conference, that my paper has been accepted for presentation. Although my professor has confirmed that he will not be able to attend the conference, I'm pretty determine not to miss this opportunity to present at an international event within the System Identification Community. This has given me so much motivation to redouble my efforts in pursuing the objectives set out for the completion of my research. And if enough funding is obtained, I will be able to go with my lovely wife... #crossingfingers Pretty exciting times ahead...

Over the course of the past 2-3 weeks I decided to take the plunge of learning a new training algorithm which had quite alot of attention in the academic community but was also well constructed for easier implementation. The work by Peng et al on developing the Continuous Forward Algorithm (CFA) was my subject of attention. The overall premise behind implementing this algorithm was to investigate less memory-intensive machine learning algorithm that will not sacrifice accuracy or robustness. The ability to have a real-time learning system for low-cost electronics (such as the Teensy 3.6 ) has huge implications for the commercialization and affordable access of intelligent drones specifically for developing and even under-developed economies. The far-reaching impact of having technology leveraging efforts of farmers, herders, game rangers, biologists is the next wave of industrialization. This is the essence of this blog. The journey is very exciting and eventual results even mo...

"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...