11/17/14 Update
11/17/14 This past week I ordered new parts in order to jumpstart the telemetry system. I determined that using the chipKit Max 32 board with the Eagle Tree air speed sensor was too difficult to continue devoting time to. Instead I have now order the Arduino Mega 2560 board and an altimeter that is known to work with the Mega. I have already found this code online and downloaded it. I verified (compiled) it on my computer using the Arduino IDE and it compiled successfully. I believe that it should be relatively easy to ‘plug and play’ once I get these parts. Then once the Mega communicates...
Read More11/10/14 Update
11/10/14 This past week I calculated the amount of information that could be collected during one flight duration. I found that at 5 readings of air speed, altitude, and GPS per second I collect 10500 bytes during a 5 minute flight (see table at end). I also found that the Max Chip Kit 32 board that I am using is practically an Arduino and should be able to be used as one. “…supports the original Arduino™ line. Compatible with many existing Arduino™ code examples, reference materials and other resources.” This being said, I still have not been able to get the air speed sensor working with my...
Read More11/3/14 Update
11/3/14 This week I learned all about I2C protocol. I2C protocol, or inter-integrated circuit, uses a master/slave combination to talk to multiple sensors from one master. The master being a microcontroller for example. At first I tried to find a way to use sensors without I2C, however, as I looked I found that more and more sensors actually used I2C and that there were a lot of resources online for help. For example the air speed sensor I am using now uses I2C. And the altimeter from Eagle Tree (that is missing) also does. I have not yet gotten the air speed sensor to work using I2C but I...
Read More10/27/14 Update
10/27/14 Last week I fixed my MATLAB code that doesn’t use forces. I found that our ground speed will have a great effect on the lead distance than the altitude. Several figures are below from the script. Altitude varying slope: 0.492 Ground Speed varying slope: 3.67 Varying ground speed has a larger impact on the lead distance. I started writing the code for the microcontroller and found that I have to use a serial peripheral interface (SPI) technique. Since I am not familiar with SPI, I have been doing some reading and checking examples online. Ervin and I also connected the test bed set...
Read More10/20/14 Update
10/20/14 This past week I spent a lot of my time working on the MATLAB code for the trajectory. I modeled the trajectory in 2D-space and for a while I was pretty sure I had it modeled correctly. Although, I was not sure and kept trying to tweak the code until now it does not work. But it should be easy to revert back to the working version. I found also that for the Advance class you must use a battery to control the servos of at least 100 mAh and that there is also a section stating that gyroscopic assist is allowed. Could this be used to make sure the plane is level while approaching the...
Read More10/13/14 Update
10/13/14 This past week Ervin and I began setting up the motor and running it with the ESC and RC controller. We connected the battery to the ESC and the ESC to the motor. The receiver for the RC controller also connected to the ESC. We could not get the motor to spin for days and believed this to be a problem with the receiver. Ervin managed to figure out why the receiver was not working while I was away. I met with Professor Bruno and we talked extensively about the physics behind drag forces and what to expect when calculating the humanitarian drop. He gave me a list of 1950s fluid...
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