Plane Ol’ Team

1. Plane Ol’ Team Design Review 1: “Prepare to Be Impressed…..”

2. Introduction By David Grimsman

3. 1. Airframe 2. Autopilot 3. Navigation 4. Computer Vision 5. User Interface (UI) Overview As a team we are designing or implementing five aspects of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV):

4. Objectives • Win the competition at the end • Build a quality UAV • Successfully design/implement automatic takeoff and landing • Win the competition at the end • If nothing else at least have fun • Win the competition at the end

5. Competition • We’re not quite sure what the specific objectives of the end competition are yet • When we find out we’ll have more specific objectives for our team • For now, we are just concentrating on making the UAV fly

6. Impressed Yet?

7. Airframe By Rajat Kala

8. Overview • Key Customer Requirements / Critical Areas • Current progress • Critical design issues • Future plan of action

9. Aircraft must have battery power for at least 45 min. Must weight less than 55 lbs Wings must withstand forces up to 2 grams Aircraft must take-off within an area of less than 150 feet Target : 1hour Target : 10 lbs Target : 2.5 grams Target : 100 feet Key Customer Requirements / Critical Areas

10. Current Progress • Plane ready for RC Flight • Elevator, Rudder, Throttle all work and move in correct direction • Dummy weights for RC test flight • Autopilot • Video System (Camera and Video Transmitter) • Trained on Simulator • Controlled flight and landing • Recover from a stall/rolling dive

11. Critical design issues • Location of Camera on plane ( 2 options) • Beneath the base of the plane • Pros • No need to cut holes in the plane • Cons • More possibility of damage to camera • Inside the plane along with other components • Pros • Camera protected by airframe • Cons • Need to make a hole for the camera view

12. Future plan of action • Test Fly the plane • RC flight with dummy weights • Test center of gravity and drag. (2/19) • Autonomous flight using autopilot/video • Test for autopilot integration (2/26) • Test switching between manual control and autopilot using the communications box.(2/26) • Test video integration (3/5) • Future tests for newly created code (as required)

13. Autopilot By Jon Orgill

14. The airplane has 5 important sensors: 3-axis accelerometers (x,y,z) 3-axis rate gyros (p,q,r) Temperature Sensor Absolute pressure sensor Differential pressure sensor

15. So far, we have implemented a lateral and longitudinal autopilot mode for our plane. • The longitudinal mode implements rudder control, • And is implemented using successive loop closure • with yaw rate as the inner loop. This controls the • heading. • The lateral mode uses throttle and pitch to control • heading mode. These are all implemented using • successive loop closure (feeding one output of a • system into the input of another system)

16. Problems and Solutions: • One of our issues was to decide how to implement • the loop controls in code. We decided to use the loop • functions already in Kestrel.c rather than making our • own. The function is called PID_Calculate() and • computes our errors and uses Kp, Ki, and Kd values • to give the plane easy access to tuning. • 2. Another issue was getting our plane to fly in • a smooth manner. This is important to maintain stability • so that the plane can get visual information accurately. • Our lateral control was working very unstable, until we • added another error addition to the output.

17. Future implementations for the project: 1.We need to test the autopilot modes in hardware, and actually fly the plane sometime. 2. We need to fine tune our K values in actual flight. 3. As far as I’m aware, all autopilot modes are implemented. We need to figure out how the autopilot will be implemented together with other parts of the project, so everything works harmoniously.

18. Navigation By Nghia Tran

19. Progress • Implemented different path following methods on Aviones/MATLAB/kestrel using a finite state machine implementation • Implemented RRT search algorithm to find paths between two points while avoiding obstacles • Implemented the plane-cut method and Lin-Kerninghan heuristics on finding a good search pattern on the map while avoiding obstacles.

20. Progess • Plane-cut method did not work as well as the heuristics because it is based on linear programming and most of the segments are equal, leading to non-integral solutions in the linear program. • Lin-Kerninghan heuristics gives a good path but the turns are bad. Trying to smooth the turnings points.

21. Nice covering, bad turning points

22. Future Improvements • Work on the smoothing of the path • Implement the cost functions taking the sharpness of turns into account. • Work on a better graph building algorithm. Current one is slow, each 20 times slower than finding the search path. There are many ideas that need to be implemented. • Work on implementing the path following routine on the airframe itself.

23. Computer Vision By Dan Watts

24. Progress • Calculating rotation and homography • Aligning images • Correcting camera for radial distortion • Doing it in openCV

25. Current Efforts • Feature tracking • Geo-location

26. Plans • Simulate target tracking in aviones • Set up camera to stream from the plane • Implement target tracking and locating

27. Simulated Tracking • Add features to maps • Use feature tracking functions to track feature in aviones • Obtain location of features with least-squared-error calculation • Projected completion: 2/17

28. Camera • Decide best location and orientation for camera • Work with airframe to install camera and transmitter • Find distortion coefficients for camera • Enable software to interface with frame grabber • Projected completion: 2/24

29. Tracking Implementation • Port code from aviones • Projected completion: 3/3 • Test tracking on a variety of targets • Work with other groups to guide plane toward targets

30. Future Possibilities • Artificial neural network for tracking and locating • Kalman filter for telemetry • Infra-red • Lasers • Footage for a new episode of “Wings”

31. User Interface By Kyle Dickerson

32. UI Problems Encountered: • Lab machines not set up properly at first • No spec for Interface with Virtual Cockpit • Still unsure what the final interface specification will be to interact with UAV via VC • Steep learning curve with QT and OpenGL • QT4 is still fairly new, not a lot of information available outside of technical documentation

33. Current Status:

34. Target Design:

35. UI Development Timeline: • Feb 24: Video Feed functioning • Mar 10: Camera footprint / UAV position overlay • Mar 24: UAV chase view overlayed in main view • Apr 7: Have all bugs ironed out, ready for competition • Apr 11: Complete any remaining tasks, and have some fun

36. Conclusion By Matt Maxwell

37. Integration Plans • Airframe • Fly airframe with remote control to ensure plane is suitably built • Autopilot • Autopilot Simulation • Test autopilot on a stationary UAV • Test autopilot while flying • Tune gain values

38. Integration Plans • Navigation • Path planning simulation • Implement path planning on a stationary UAV • Implement path planning while flying • Vision • Implement target tracking in Aviones • Get streaming video • Implement actual target tracking

39. Integration Plans • User Interface • Implement multiple views • Implement target selection • Implement video display • Implement cockpit controls

40. Integration Overview Airframe Autopilot Navigation Video Feed Target Tracking Final Product Video in User Interface Multiple Views Completed GUI Target Selection Cockpit Controls

41. Integration Overview Autopilot Navigation Airframe Autopilot Navigation Video Feed Target Tracking Final Product Target Tracking Video in User Interface Multiple Views Completed GUI Target Selection Cockpit Controls

42. Integration Schedule • 2/24 • Preliminary Airframe and Autopilot Integration • Simulated Target Tracking • Video feed in User Interface (including camera mounting) • 3/10 • Complete integration of Airframe and Autopilot • Tune gain values for autopilot • Image-based target tracking and estimation • UAV position overlay in UI • Implementation of path planning

43. Integration Schedule • 3/24 • UAV chase view in UI • Implement smooth path planning with improved cost function • 4/7 • Final implementation of each division • 4/11 • Debug and fine tune

44. Conclusion • Divided the project into parallel tasks • Designated practice competitions as implementation milestones • Designated time towards end of deadline for debugging/tuning (instead of further implementation)

45. Integration Plans • Airframe • Fly airframe with remote control to ensure plane is suitably built • Autopilot • Autopilot Simulation • Test autopilot on a stationary UAV • Test autopilot while flying • Tune gain values

46. Integration Plans • Navigation • Path planning simulation • Implement path planning on a stationary UAV • Implement path planning while flying • Vision • Implement target tracking in Aviones • Get streaming video • Implement actual target tracking

47. Integration Plans • User Interface • Implement multiple views • Implement target selection • Implement video display • Implement cockpit controls

48. Integration Overview Airframe Autopilot Navigation Video Feed Target Tracking Final Product Video in User Interface Multiple Views Completed GUI Target Selection Cockpit Controls

49. Integration Overview Autopilot Navigation Airframe Autopilot Navigation Video Feed Target Tracking Final Product Target Tracking Video in User Interface Multiple Views Completed GUI Target Selection Cockpit Controls

50. Integration Schedule • 2/24 • Preliminary Airframe and Autopilot Integration • Video feed in User Interface • 3/10 • Complete integration of Airframe and Autopilot • Tune gain values for autopilot • Image-based target tracking and estimation • UAV position overlay in UI • Implementation of path planning