Widgets keep on rolling

An important feature of the Ground Control Station has to be the mission time.So,here is another widget built with elementary programming and mathematics for showing time since mission started.Does this look fine or should something like an analog clock be made.

The Virtual Cockpit

Finally i played a flight simulation game and found out how virtual cockpit works.After getting help from forums and mailing lists,i have been able to make virtual cockpit widget using wxPython(GUI library).And yes,'yaw' has been incorporated too.Attached is an image of it while it was been run on test data.This image shows a small r,p,y reading.If anyone feels it is lacking or if anyone has suggestions,please do comment.

Season II post 1

Season II has begun and we are clear about our approach this time.We have already learnt a lot from the first year and seem to have become more professional this time around.
Updates on Ground Control Station
Java has been replaced by Python and Pythonic way has been keeping me stuck to my laptop for hours.With Python being the ideal RAD(Rapid Application Development)Language,my work has been progressing well.For the previous two months have been at forums/mailing lists trying to figure out which libraries to use and how to use them.Two months into PyGtk and suddenly i come across wxPython which has a really decent GDI(Graphical Display Interface) and have been using it for last few days.
Some work which has been done at the local level:
1.Creation of virtual cockpit(haven't figured out displaying roll there)
2.Creation of a clock/timer showing mission time
3.Reading from serial port and writing to it(and yes this time i don't need to press enter key each time to transmit data)
4.Interpret data coming from serial port via "re" module(beautiful feature in Python)
5.Creating a 3d box to show imu data in VPython

Some territories that i have not yet visited but plan to:
1.UI designing principles(883 pages book)
2.OpenGL/PyOpenGl(have used Vpython,but have been advised to minimise it's usage and completely shift to OpenGl)
3.Mapping:Contrary to what i did last time i am tryinfg to figure out how to use any open source GIS to my benefit,otherwise i have my older approach as a backup anyway)
4.Integrating the data with SQLite instead of simple text files acting as database
5.If needed shift the entire code to wxWidgets(C++) to make it lightningn quick and processor friendly
6.Make an installer for the application for all environments
7.Try and integrate Matplotlib(open source equivalent of Matlab+Labview)for all the analysis purposes

If anyone feels that there is anything more that i shall do.please add comments

Second flight of Icarus with onboard camera

Sig Rascal 110 aka. Icarus had its second flight and the first one with an on-board camera, though it was just a cellphone taped at its bottom but the video gives a nice idea about the stability and degree of vibrations of the aircraft. The aircraft was flying over the college's campus at about a height of 80-100 ft.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_o8M8SRYGo

AHRS Update

Yes, I know we've been missing for a while but we're back and we promise we haven't been idle.

The Attitude Heading and Reference System(AHRS) is two-thirds ready.
We have successfully implemented a 6-state Extended Kalman filter(EKF) to compute the roll, pitch and yaw.The roll and pitch are working astonishingly well, while the yaw is completely screwed up!!

To test our AHRS, we did an experiment in which it was tested along with a commercial AHRS - Xsens Mti IMU .The two units were aligned along the same axes on a bakelite board and different motions were given.The data was logged and then plotted in Matlab.

The results for roll and pitch were nothing short of spectacular.



As can be seen from the graphs,performance of our AHRS almost exactly matches the MTI
leaving aside the initial offsets(due to errors while assembling on the board).This is a huge step forward as with just the roll and pitch, the control system will be able to fly the plane with stability.

However, the yaw is still a matter of concern but we hope to work it out in the next few days.Hopefully, our next post will be our last for the AHRS team.

A big Thank You !! to the AUV team (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) who lent us their IMU for testing.

Maiden Flight of ICARUS !!!

Yes, the damn plane can actually fly !!!

The first flight of Icarus ( named after Daedalus' son of the melting wax fame) thankfully did not live up to it's name and was a resounding success.

The MECH team, often accused (behind their backs...so please NO ONE tell them!!) of delaying work and wasting too much time in frivolous stuff, have done some fantastic work over the past 3 days to get the plane ready to fly.

It was an amazing sight to watch...the plane is really stable and flies well, so thats good news for the control team.
Somehow today watching it fly I couldnt help but feel that we are a lot closer to our goal..and with a little more effort we can definitely make it in time for the competition. But anyway, that's still a long way off.

A video of the flight will be posted pretty soon.

Suraj

www.dceuav.com LAUNCHED....!!

Finally....!!!
After all the sending and coming back of Demand Drafts, the website of the project has been released....

Another Brick in the Wall...!!

Cheers....

Visit www.dceuav.com