[Canberrauav] Tuesday Recap (UAV Challenge Day 2)
Stephen Dade stephen_dade at hotmail.com 
Wed Oct 3 15:51:16 EST 2012 

Hi everyone,

I wasn't feeling too good last night (dehydration + sunburn + alcohol 
= bad), so I'm a bit late with this update.

Tuesday started early (5am) and we were at the airport for the 6am 
pilot's briefing.

First off was scrutineering for OpenUAS (who were up all night fixing 
their crashed UAV), Forward Robotics and CompassUAV. All 3 passed the 
scrutineering.

By 10am, the 4 remaining teams were randomly assigned placements for 
the Challenge. The ordering was: Forward Robotics, OpenUAS, CompassUAV 
and then CanberraUAV. OpenUAS weren't able to recharge their batteries 
in time for their flight, so they were moved to last spot. Thus CompassUAV 
would be second and CanberraUAV third.

Forward Robotics managed to search 2/3 of the search area before they 
ran out of time - their procedure was to store the photos onboard 
their UAV, land and analyse the photos and then takeoff again for the 
bottle drop. They did not find Joe.

CompassUAV and OpenUAS both crashed shortly after takeoff.

As for us:
We drove out to the runway and set up our ground station and UAV 
within the 15 min limit. We had to wait for 20min during this time, 
due to nearby manned aircraft.

We did a auto takeoff - Jack flipped a switch on his controller and 
the UAV took off smoothly and disappeared into the distance.

Then began the tension. Matt, Tridge and myself were monitoring the 
UAV's status. All telemetry was nominal for the first 5 min.

At this time, the UAV's speed suddenly started dropping for no reason. 
Altitude was being maintained, so it wasn't an engine failure. We 
pushed up the throttle to maintain 30m/s cruise speed. We also noticed 
that the bottle drop indicator was showing "dropped". The assumption 
was the bottle had come loose during flight and was swinging 
side-to-side under the UAV (still attached though).

There was alot of turbulence during the flight - the UAV was crabbing 
at 30 degrees at some points!

30 min (I think) into the mission, we found Joe. We got some lovely 
photos of him and gave his position to the organisers. This position 
was rejected as being more than 150m from Joe.

We (carefully) ordered the UAV to perform a confirmation pass of Joe 
again. With a better image and geo-reference, we gave a new position 
to the organisers. It was still wrong.

We double-checked our calculations and gave a third position to the 
organisers. This was still wrong. With our 3 attempts used, we ordered 
the UAV to come back and land at the airport. Jack took manual control 
~5 seconds before landing due to turbulence throwing the UAV to the 
side of the runway. We landed safely (though we scraped the left wind 
and wheel).

Seeing the UAV coming back and performing it's landing approach was an 
awesome sight. The moment it had landed we were all cheering and 
shouting. We had (almost) done the impossible, and survived to tell 
the tale.

After landing, we discovered the parachute string wrapped around the 
propeller. It was fairly obvious at this point that the bottle had 
somehow become detached and the parachute string had got caught in the 
propeller. It was a miracle that the UAV had continued going after this.

We thought at first that it had perhaps been  bird strike. After 
consultation with the organisers (some of whom have done air crash 
investigations before), the most likely reason is that the parachute 
string had come loose during flight and got caught in the propeller. 
When this happened, the bottle would have been ripped from the UAV and 
flung off.

Some time after the mission, it was discovered that the organisers had 
configured their GPS incorrectly. Our initial Joe position was indeed 
correct. Thus we had found Joe. Given the damage that our UAV had 
sustained though, it would have been impossible for us to do a bottle 
drop.

We spent the evening at a celebratory drinks/nibbles function with the 
other teams, sponsors and organisers.

... and that was the day.

Thanks

Stephen 

[Canberrauav] Wenesday Recap (UAV Challenge, Day 3)
Stephen Dade stephen_dade at hotmail.com 
Wed Oct 3 23:18:29 EST 2012 

Still more updates!

Today was definitely less stressful - the Organisers wanted us to setup 
our UAV and ground station on display for the day, to show the VIP's and 
high school teams our (awesome) setup.

We spent most of the day answering questions from the many people who were 
curious about our setup.

In the afternoon we had the official awards ceremony. The Organisers gave 
"encouragement prizes" to all 4 teams that made it to the runway. The other 
3 teams got a few $1000 each, while CanberraUAV received a prize of 
$10,000. We also got a (very) shiny trophy and a certificate.

We had many, many photos taken of us with the UAV. Tridge and myself gave 
an interview to a Channel 10 video crew - they'll let us know when it'll be 
shown on TV (most likely as a segment in one of their science/technology 
shows).

Tomorrow's plan is to go looking for the missing water bottle (Tridge has 
narrowed it down to a 500m area). We will begin the drive back in the late 
morning, with the aim to arrive in Canberra by Friday evening.


Thanks

Stephen

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