Week 3 Blog Record

In the third week, the whole hardware structure of the drone were completed to support the final operation. There were also great progress on the coding of flying control, but problems and bugs still existed. 

Hardware & Testing

During this week, we used the male-to-female pin wires to connect the flight controller and the structure of the drone. Under this condition, the complete drone were finished. All functions should be realized based on it. 

However, during te test, there were mistakes on the voltage division. After analysis, we found the unexpected connection between the flight controller board and the ESC board. To solve it, we built a shelter for flight controller to ensure that there is no current flow among the surface of the components. In other words, the shelter was a paper box working as an insulator. 

The general circuit structure was completed. Moreover, most of the components were tested and ensured to operate normally.

problem:

Unfortunately, the Li-po buttery still did not arrive this Friday. In addition, when testing the drone, the gyroscope was broken due to unexpected large voltage division. Even though the final voltage division was corrected, it cannot output signals as expected. Next week, a new gyroscope was required. In the next few weeks, we would be cautious to avoid breaking components which would not only waste cost but also reduce the efficiency of the project.

       

Software & Coding

We spent most of the meeting time concentrated on the coding and found some useful parts for our drone. We identified the specific functions of each code block and selected those useful for our drone. Even though the logical structure of coding was complicated and confusing for some parts, we discussed together and tried to tested the flying data on the computer.

problem: 

We did not finish the whole code work. There were still several confusing points in coding related to the flying. We will figure out these confusions for another two extra meetings during this weekend. 

 

Next Week:

1. We hope the Li-po battery and the new gyroscope could arrive. Then, we can conduct our first formal flying test.

2. Each part of the codes must be figured out. Extra meetings will be on next Wednesday to discuss about the issues. The basic functions of flying is expected to be realized next Friday.