Week 5 Blog Record

This was the final week of the project. We obtained the new gyroscope  and finished our drone buiding. The drone could almost succeeded in flying based on the software system embedded into the flight controller. However, there were still a few issues.

Hardware & Testing

The new gyroscope was added to the system. According to simulated inputs, each separate component could work with proper outputs. Then, the final flying test was ready to be done. Three of the motors rotated successfully, while the final one failed with extreme low rotated speed. As a result, the drone could move, but cannot fly with stabilization. Additionally, the speed of motors could be modified to control the whole drone which was a great success.
 

problems:

1. During one of the test time, one of the input and output terminals of flight controller were carelessly linked together. Therefore, the input terminal Vin of flight controller and the terminal used to receive electricity of PDB were both broken. Therefore, the battery failed to work as the power supply. This was the final week, so we had no more time to get new devices. Finally, we connected the drone directly to the computer to achieve the input signal of flight controller and provide the electricity to PDB.
2. One of the ESCs (ESC2) was broken. It was found to work with low speed compared with other three ones. After exchanging the input signal of ESC2 with ESC1, ESC2 did work but ESC1 failed. Thus, we found the issue was the hardware of ESC itself rather than the code mistakes. Finally, we determined to purchase a new one if we have time next week to replace the broken one with it. If all four ESC work normally, the drone could fly successfully.


Software & Coding

Everything regarding the coding seemed perfect. What we did, was compiled and transmitted the codes into flight controller and conducted the final testing.
 

Next Week:

1. We will prepare all materials, including the poster and relative documents, for the bench inspection.
2. The presentation shouuld be prepared with proper task division. We will try our best to show the results of this drone building project and what we yielded from it next Friday.

Conclusion

Overall, even though there was still errors for the final test, we generally completed the drone project. Not only the internal structure of a drone was systematically learnt, but also the practical operation skills to create a electronic product was achieved. In addition, as a group project, the team spirit was cultivated through task division and problem solving. Overall, the project brought us academic achievements as well as ability to settle technical problems in reality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 4 Blog Record

Image
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. ...
Read more

Week 3 Blog Record

Image
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. ...
Read more