CanberraUAV

Notes for meeting chair/minute takers

2013 July 01

Present:

Stephen Dade

Andrew Tridgell

Jack Pittar

Chris Gough

Matt Ridley

Darrell Burkey

Alex Mason

Report on in-progress items

New testing ground (Geoff’s place)

Excellent site for long range testing, regular use acceptable, access to a workshop and cake is provided.

Did a successful test flight yesterday with the full system

GPS issues, compass turned off (magnetic interference) in the new plane

camera calibration problems (roll). We need a good procedure.

image quality OK with the ODroid rig

ODroid had no issues with CV code

Search area flown on the weekend was 850m * 240m (visual range because relatively immature plane), larger area possible within property boundary.

Suggest flying there about once per month.

Issues that require fixing:

fix roll calibration

work on compass issues

time synchronisation between GCS and ODroid - NTP misconfiguration (changed IP address)

cuav module should WARN if plane/GCS computers are out of sync

In one month, fly again

Calibrated ETS airspeed sensor (possibly with self-calibrating airspeed sensor with 3 dimensional Kalman filter)
Calibrated roll gimbal
Automated Landing
Fixed GPS and Magnetometer issues
better Joe finding - hit (green + orange) and missed the blue one more than we would have liked.
Better Geo referencing

PT Grey

request for sponsorship was declined

want access to their better cameras ($2K - $3K each)

Satellite Backup

Options:

None

SPOT beacon

Data link

Data link seems hopelessly expensive.

SPOT service is affordable and potentially useful.

Discussion about how amazing satellite technology is, path loss etc.

Homework: Research the costs and features of different beacons (e.g. SPOT) for next week’s meeting

Some mention of using HF/LF data links. These would very long range. Would expect around a 19200 baud data rate. No idea in regards to costs or potential interference from the transmitting antenna.

workshops

quadcopter workshop is filling up

cut off date on Thursday

SAR-scenarios

no action noted

schools-program

no action noted

OBC2014

University of Canberra has a team entered. It is headed by an ex-Dickson College student.

See Geoff’s place - next flight in 4 weeks will be at “OBC2012 level”, minus bottle drop and endurance.

Grant Morphett has been doing some research into Bottle Drop mechanism.

Other business

discussion about various airspeed sensors

Tridge authorised to buy 3 * ETS Airspeed sensor units. They are around $33 each.

The RSISE department at the ANU is doing some interesting work with the APM and quadcopters. They are quite interested in our work too. It would be a good idea to meet up with them - possibly the Tuesday after next (16th July).