Previous Posts

Here are our previous meetings posted on our old website:

Meeting March 10, 2016

For our initial meeting, we decided what we would need to keep track of on the website. We Also made the website available via a repository stored on Bitbucket so it remains private to our team.

We also started to decide a timeline on our milestones. Nothing concrete has been decided but some ballpark timelines were offered and it was decided that we would reflect on them in order to start nailing down our projects deadlines.

Meeting April 14, 2016

This week we met to determine a protocal that we will follow for the bluetooth communication. This will allow us to control the quadcopter with various commands shown in this document here

We decided to take the weekend to try to implement the bluetooth communication as well as work on the IMU. Once we have some basic commands setup for safety and manual navigation, we will be able to do more in-depth testing.

Meeting March 17, 2016

This week we have started ordering parts. Our main focus is the quadcopter at least until summer. In the summer, we will get more serious about integrating the quadcopter and the lidar. This will start to provide a base for our SLAM implementation. The current parts are listed below:

• Aluminum Framing
• Brushless Motors x4
• Electronic Speed Controllers x4
• STM32F407 Microcontroller
• Jumper wires
• Gyrometer

Meeting April 21, 2016

This week we got together and tested the bluetooth thoroughly to make sure that it was the protocal we wanted. We were able to tune the pid using the bluetooth to test. We were also able to run various other commands to manipulate the state of the quadcopter.

We have added some files to show our progress. This is our report hich shows things like the bill of materials, future applications, implementation strategies...etc. Report

We also have a video that you can download and watch here: Video

Meeting March 24, 2016

The week we worked on the quadcopters frame. The aluminum frame provides a good prototype base for our quadcopter. We mounted everything the frame and put the frame in a test harness built with the same aluminum. We then mounted the board onto the quadcopter and started to test the quadcopter's microntroller.

We have gotten a basic setup to start implementation/testing of the quadcopter. We have found one unforeseen issue thus far, we need a wireless kill switch. So we have order a bluetooth module to attach the quadcopter and plan to use it to connect to the computer to safely kill the device remotely.

Meeting March 31, 2016

This week we accomplished a basic PID control of the motors. We also dented the aluminum frame of the quadcopter. We now have order a significantly stronger frame made of a high quality plastic with an on board PCB in case we need it. There is also some special mounts for the quadcopter motors. This frame should be in by the end of the week. We will have to gut the old frame and reset everything we have done thus far.

Meeting April 7, 2016

This week we worked on mounting our components to the frame. We thought we had broken one of the motors but found out that our power supply wasn't providing enough current. We calculated we will need about 8 Amps to drive the motors completely. Shortly after requesting the new power supply we received one to test on. We still have not tested since the quadcopter is still being put back together on the new frame. As soon as this is done and we setup shop, we will test with the old powersupply first to make sure we are properly connected. Once we are in a good state, we will try the new power supply since we don't know if it is in working condition. We are also working on the bluetooth kill switch which came in this week.