User:Rhorton4549/enes100/Helicopter

Link to team page.

Give instructor top 3 project choice list
Gave my top three choices for my next project. First was Helicopter, second was continuing Wind Tunnel, and third was Old Flat Screens. Ended up in Helicopter and hopefully the experience working with an Arduino and R/C servo will be useful on this project.

Write problem statement
Look through the existing problem statements. Find something not yet done on the project. Create a problem statement for it. Think of a new subsystem that needs to be built for the project. The goal is something simple, possible, for zero dollars.

Assign Task1
Tasks are typically done over the weekend. They are documented during the week, presented during the week and the next weekends work is negotiated during the week. Week 0 is the week that task 1 is negotiated. Record your individual task here. Plan on working on it during the weekend between week0 and week1.

Compare actual work done to Task1
Rationalize differences

Week1 Narrative


Monday we were unable to meet as a group so it wasn't until Wednesday that we were able to meet during class to discuss the project and what we as a group wanted to work on. Immediately, we went after the quad-copters as they are a highly visible aspect of the overall Helicopter project goals. Getting the quad-copter ready for flight was relatively simple save for one issue: charging the battery. While there are three of the quad-copters belonging to the department, they have been opened and experimented with by other groups and as a result, the accessories, including the chargers and power brick had been misplaced. While there were two power bricks that were immediately visible, one of them had an adapter on it that was for another country and could not be used. Mr. Foerster said that if we could find the third power brick, and if the adapter on it was for the U.S., then we could borrow a quad-copter for the weekend.

After about five minutes of looking through the bins of power bricks in the back, I found the third power brick with a US adapter on it. As there were batteries aplenty and an extra charger, I was able to take home the quad-copter to "test" over the weekend. Arriving home I did a web search for "Parrot AR Drone" and found the main website for the device by the company that produces them. On the page was a link to Tutorials which contained links to the User Manual and a FAQ along with a list of videos detailing unboxing, setup, and flight instructions for both indoor and outdoor. In addition, the main page also had a link to the free flight app in the iTunes store so that the drone could be controlled with an iOS device such as an iPhone 4. After charging one of the batteries and installing it into the drone, I fired up the iPhone app, connected to the drone's wifi signal, and then I had to wait as the drone's firmware required an update. After going through this procedure, the drone was ready for a test flight. Pressing takeoff on the iPhone screen resulted in the drone's rotors spinning up almost immediately and it lifted up off the box by about two feet.

Flying the drone is relatively simple but requires practice. The right joystick is multi-directional. When sliding to either the right or left, the drone will rotate in that direction. Up and down controls the vertical level of the drone while sliding between up/down and left/right will rotate will also increasing or decreasing altitude. The left joystick is for movement. Once pressing on it, tilting the iPhone forward will cause the drone tilt it's nose downwards and be propelled forward. Tilting the phone backward results in the nose tilting upwards, and being propelled backwards. Tilting either left or right cause the drone to move in that direction. These controls apply if you are standing behind the drone with the camera facing away from you and are reversed if you are standing in front of the drone with the camera aimed at you.

My flight consisted of learning these controls and learning the responsiveness of the drone to my input. There were some bumps up against bookshelves and also against the ceiling (I was flying in a basement) and once, one of the propellers got caught under a bookshelf and I was unable to get it to extricate itself and it declared an emergency and crashed. The indoor hull was fairly resistant to these incidents and showed no signs of damage. After a few minutes of practice, I had the drone rapidly accelerate towards a fireplace, stop, then rapidly accelerate back towards me and having it stop only a few inches from my noggin. The amount of air being moved seems quite large as there is a serious draft from both above and below the drone. I would like to try and record the movement of air through the propellers using a smoke machine and this may shed some light on how any drone built in the future may need to move.

Week1 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and a signature ~ by entering four tildes in a row to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task2
Practice flying the drone indoors and if the weather and time permits, attempt flying outdoors.

Compare actual work done to Task2
Flying outdoors proved problematic due mostly to the fact that it was very cold outside and without the outdoor hull I did not feel comfortable attempting flight outside. Flying indoors did not prove any better as during one takeoff, the drone lifted off then immediately proceeded to accelerate upwards into the ceiling without any user input. After colliding with the ceiling, it dropped back down to the floor with a clearly heard impact. After another two flight attempts during which the drone responded fairly well to commands, it again decided it wanted to fly into the ceiling, so I stopped all further flight operations for the weekend. I did however record video of the drone hovering and also demonstrating it's self-stabilization capability

Week2 Narrative
Upload photos to wikimedia. Upload video to youtube. Convert all spreadsheets, documents, and presentations to wiki format and create wiki subpage of your page for each of them. Link to them here in a narrative that tells a story. High light the problems (engineering problems) you had and how you solved them.

Week2 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and a signature ~ by entering four tildes in a row to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task3
Record what you are planning on doing for the team during the weekend between week2 and week3 of the project here.

Compare actual work done to Task3
Rationalize differences

Week3 Narrative
This week was mostly devoted to other courses that have upcoming exams but I did find time to recheck the settings for the esc_easy program. In prior tests, a single value, when changed to 30 allows for communication between the motor and ESC allowing the ESC to instruct the motor. I changed the value several times in multiples of 15 from 0 to 90 with anything over 30 resulting in no response from the motor. 30 seemed the only value that resulted in any response from the motor when a speed was sent to the ESC. This is the code here that I was using. This code was given to me during my previous project by Mr. Foerster and was used in the spring of 2011 by the group KnapoJacob. I modified the value 85 in this section here to a value of 30.

void setSpeed(int speed){ //these are the values you change ie: 60,180 or 30,180 //I used 85 to 180 becuase it gave me speed from the values 65(off) to 90 and i wanted a 25 speed gradient int pulse = map(speed, 0, 100,85, 180); myservo.write(pulse);

With this setting changed, when entering in speed values of any multiple of 1-9, resulted in gradually increasing speeds, entering any multiple of 10 set the speed to 0, although it initially set the speed to 49 then dropped it to 0. I attempted to attach a propeller to the motor shaft but working with the hardware included with the motor and lack of instructions made this difficult.

Week3 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and a signature ~ by entering four tildes in a row to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task4
Mount the motor to a wood block and practice with the AR drone outside and record the flight.

Compare actual work done to Task4
The plan for the week was to mount the motor to a wooden block in order to have a more stable platform for testing purposes. As the portion of this motor that spins is both the top and bottom, the bottom part of the motor would have to be recessed into the wood block. The first attempt at this was to use a standard drill bit to drill a hole. With some assistance from my dad, I held down the wood block while he wielded the drill. This did not go over well as the hole was not wide enough and attempting to expand it became somewhat dangerous for the person holding the wood block. As a result, it was decided that a different bit was needed. Later in the day, after taking measurements of the motor, an appropriate bit was found and used to create another hole on another side of the block. This worked out much better and the motor dropped in with only a small amount of room around it. Using some small wood screws, I secured the motor to the block although only three could be used to as one of the mounting holes was not centered fully over the wood. With the motor attached to the block, I attached the propeller to the shaft and connected the motor to the Arduino. In addition, I used electrical tape to wrap the power leads to prevent possible electrocution. The initial test with the motor mounted and attached propeller resulted in the propeller nearly flying off the motor. Tightening the nut further resulted in the second test being more successful. The propeller stayed secure while running through different speed values and although there was some amount of rattling, the motor stayed put. I recorded video of a test run that shows the propeller staying on, the sound of the motor varies with the speed input although it does not very by much. With the motor mounted, the next step may be to mount a potentiometer and vary the speed of the motor using that.

In addition, I took an AR Drone home again, this time with an outdoor shell that was found in a cupboard in the supply room. This shell covers only the main body of the drone leaving the four propellers free. After charging the batteries overnight, I took the drone outside around two in the afternoon and installed one of the batteries. Setting the drone down on the ground, I launched the drone into the air and attempted several different maneuvers. The first flight was just a warm up but it ended up with the drone hovering in the next door neighbor's yard unresponsive to commands. At the very least, it was not responding to commands very well. It was hovering at near maximum height, but when titling the phone forward, it did not respond and I had to walk over to stand near it in order for it to respond. The second flight was better, practicing some wild maneuvering, but this ended worse than the first flight. Trying to fly the drone requires watching either the drone or the camera on the drone and I couldn't always gauge distances, especially when the drone was higher in the air. This flight ended when the drone flew into a tree, cut power, and dropped to the ground, hitting several other branches on the way. Luckily, there was no damage as a result, with the outdoor shell protecting the main part of the drone and the props showing little wear.

Week4 Narrative
There was not much accomplished this week other than mounting the motor and focusing on finishing the team page. There was limited flight time available with the drone due to studying for exams and the space intended for flying was being used for parking. I returned the mounted motor along with the Arduino, wiring, and power supply and held on to the drone for additional testing. Most of the flights took place outdoors along the street by my house where there were no obstructions such as trees. Increasing the angle of attack led to increased speeds and sharper turns outdoors but required a higher level of concentration to keep the drone aloft.

Week4 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and a signature ~ by entering four tildes in a row to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Complete Project Page
Follow the "project done" format.

Start Next Project Week0 activities
During this week you will perform the week0 activities of the next project.