Week 4 Blog Record

This week, we made progress on the overall test of the drone and software programming design. However, issues still existed. Further work will be required to complete.

Hardware & Testing

We eventually got the Li-po battery and connected it to our drone as the power supply. We found that the battery could work successfully and supply electricity to the device. We also connected all the components together to test the drone. However, the drone could not work very well as we expected. We checked each components seperately and found that the problem was on the gyroscope. The other components worked well.

Problems:

The gyroscope cannot work after power-on. In details, the arduino board failed to find the gyroscope. It was analysed that there might be several reasons. One was that the gyroscope is broken. For preparation, we decided to purchase a new one. It might be the input voltage which failed to transmitted into the component, or the abnormity of clock signal. Another reason might be the failure of software coding, but simulation test on the computer was proved that the codes were correct. Finally, it was supposed to be the problem of Arduino, which was not realized by us until next Friday.

Software & Coding

Both inputs and outputs of the codes were executed. The program was also ran based on the calibration code. Moreover, the coding part of the remote control was tested and modified to work successfully. The coding output of flying data during the test included the flying direction and detailed information of each direction. The data would change as the time passed in order to track the route of drone every second.

Problem:

Some of the data had errors. And the coding part of gyroscope cannot be tested, due to its failure of working. We purchased a new one. After it arrives, we will immediately finish the test this part. We were also trying to add codes so as to allow the drone to fly according to the control orders strictly.

 

Next Week:

1. We must find out the exact reason of the failure of gyroscope. Extra meetings will be necessary in this weekend and next Wednesday. All data about rhe functions of gyroscope should be tested.

2. It is expected to fly the drone successfully next Friday.