1 P a g e. P13231 UAV Test Bed Flight Procedures

Transcription

1 1 P a g e P13231 UAV Test Bed Flight Procedures

2 Table of Contents Introduction....3 One Time Operations Automated Flight FPV System 7 Seeded Faults.. 7 Data Management 8 On-Board Flash Memory Logging P a g e

3 Introduction: This document details the procedures that must be performed when flying a mission on the UAV test bed. One-Time Operations: Before flying by autopilot, the system must be calibrated and leveled. Step 1: Prior to flying in auto mode, the aircraft should be flown manually and trimmed. Step 2: Once trimmed, and after installing all components on the airframe, power on ArduPilot and connect via telemetry. Step 3: Execute a manual level command. 3 P a g e

4 The rear landing gear may need to be propped up to ensure the aircraft is sitting as it would in level flight. Take care not to touch the airplane while ArduPilot is performing the level command. Step 4: Calibrate the radio. Step 5: Change the PID gains if necessary to obtain stable flight Warning! Do not increase by substantial amount at one time. Change by small amounts and progressively test alterations. 4 P a g e

5 Automated Flight Preparation: Step 1: Power on ArduPilot and connect via telemetry. Do not move the aircraft immediately after powering up, as the on-board gyros are being calibrated during the initialization stage. Step 2: After ensuring the GPS has obtained a fix, set the home location. This gives ArduPilot information about the area elevation so that it knows what altitude to fly at. 5 P a g e

6 Step 3: Define the flight path and write the waypoints. Step 4: On the Flight Data tab, set the desired flight speed, select Mission_Start, select Do Action after the aircraft has achieved sufficient altitude after manual takeoff. This will put the aircraft in auto mode. Step 5: Observe flight under autopilot control! 6 P a g e

7 7 P a g e FPV System Operation: Step 1: After powering up the system, power up the receiver with a 12V power adapter. Ensure the channel on the receiver matches the channel on which the transmitter is broadcasting. Step 2: Connect the analog video output to the WinTV module, which is connected to a laptop via USB. Step 3: Open the WinTV software. Follow the software help to set up the analog input record function. Step 4: Select Record. Stop Recording when desired. Video file will be saved to the directory you have specified. Seeded Faults: Note: Use the customized Mission Planner on Edge to trigger the faults. This is located in ".\MissionPlanner-master\bin\Release" (copy this directory to your local drive). Step 1: Under the Firmware menu, select Load custom firmware. Step 2: Look for ArduPlane_fault_accel_branch.hex located in.\arduplane-2.70\binaries. Step 3: Connect with ArduPilot and wait until it finished initializing. Switch flight mode to Manual. Step 4: Change to the Flight Data menu and click on the Faults tab. Step 5: Click the button corresponding to the fault being initiated. Note this feature is only available in the custom version of Mission Planner available on EDGE

8 Data Management: Step 1: Load.tlog file after flight test. Step 2: The log can now be played back. Step 3: To view the data in spreadsheet format, choose the Tlog > Kml or Graph button, then select Convert to CSV in the pop-up window and choose the log you want to convert. 8 P a g e

9 On-Board Flash Memory Logging: Step 1: Load custom firmware. To load custom firmware, use the load custom firmware option under the firmware tab as seen in the next figure. Two firmware hex files are provided on edge under web\public\arduplane-2.70\binaries. One is the fault_accel branch with support for the analog input channels and the other is the branch containing support for the servo faults. The latter firmware also requires installation of the custom version of mission planner. Step 2: (Optional) Verify that the accelerometer data is being read by ArduPilot. The screenshot below shows the test menu. Two options have been added in the ArduPilot_fault_accel_branch, aic and eeprom. See the GoPro section for a description of the eeprom option. The aic option will continuously print out real time measurements from the 9 analog input channels, 3 through P a g e

10 Step 3: Choose Data to log. The next image shows the logs menu. Onboard logging of different types can be enabled here. Some of the more interesting ones are ATTITUDE_FAST, GPS, IMU, and MODE. The custom AIC option is also implemented for logging the 9 channels (3 through 11) of analog inputs on the ArduPilot hardware. To enable or disable a type of logging, type enable <TYPE> or disable <TYPE> Step 4: Download logs after flight test. In order to recover the logs after a flight, you must connect over USB and enter this menu. Use the Log Download button to download logs. The downloaded logs will be in Program Files\APM Planner\ logs and will appear as.log files. The files are in CSV format but each type of data is mixed together making plotting with excel difficult. A perl script is available on edge called ardu_extract.pl which can be used to reorder the data. Information on how to use perl can be found online. 10 P a g e

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