[Canberrauav] upcoming CanberraUAV testing plans
Andrew Tridgell tridge at samba.org 
Thu May 8 14:31:28 EST 2014 

Hi All,

Jack and I just had a bit of a chat about what we want to work on over
the next few weeks. We came up with this list:

This weekend
------------

We would like to get the digital airspeed sensor fitted on the
bushmaster before the weekend, then do a tuning flight with that sensor,
along with ground steering tuning. Jack is going to work on getting the
sensor fitted before the weekend. If we have time and the ground
steering is working well then we can do automatic takeoff testing.

The second task for this weekend is testing the new helical antennas for
5.8GHz. I propose that we do A/B testing against the old patch
antenna. The testing would be a ground test, with one radio connected to
the odroid-u3 and camera on the ground at CMAC, and the other radio with
the helical antennas on top of Red Hill. We would then swap between the
old linearly polarised antenna setup and the new circularly polarised
antennas, and check that the new antenna setup does give better signal
than the old one.

That would require at least 2 people at Red Hill (one operating a
laptop, the other pointing antennas), and at least one person at
CMAC. We'd communicate over mobile phone to arrange for swapping over
antennas. Based no past experience it will take at least an hour of
testing, plus setup time. This could be done either Saturday or Sunday,
and doesn't need to be in the morning. 

Do we have any volunteers to help with antenna testing? What day/time
are you available? (I am available all weekend).

Next weekend
------------

By next weekend Jack plans on having the large fuel tank fitted on the
bushmaster, allowing us to do a one hour test flight. That will start us
towards getting our 5 hours for D3. If it goes well we will do two one
hour flights on the same day.

For those longer flights I'd also like to be using the RFD900 on the
bushmaster to test the antennas Jack builtin to the tail.

Other upcoming tasks
====================

Antenna mount
-------------

We need to get a mount setup for the helical antennas and the 900MHz
yagi on the antenna tracker. Matt has offered to work on that, so when
we test it depends on his time.

Camera fitting
--------------

We need to get the camera mount fitted to the bushmaster, along with the
Odroid-U3. That will enable us to start doing full OBC imaging trials
with the bushmaster.

Bottle drop
-----------

Jack is considering a "in fuselage" tube for the bottle on the
bushmaster. Jack can tell us more about his plans for that as he works
them out.

Landing sensor
--------------

The Lidar tests went well on the weekend. Once we have some more updates
from PulsedLight and some integration into APM:Plane then we can start
doing auto-landing tests with the better runway height sensor.

Transport boxes
---------------

We need to work out how we will transport and protect the equipment. For
example the new 33dBi helical antenna could easily be damaged and I'd
like a transport tube for it to protect it. Same goes for any other
fragile parts.

Anything else to add to this list?

Cheers, Tridge

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