*Sorry for the dark video. I didn't know it was set to fast shutter. Better quality video will be up later.
We're in the final stretch of the project and things need to get done ASAP. This is the first true test of all the communication protocols that I designed for the project. We're using a Wii Nunchuk to control our AMAV in real time. This demo shows one of our goals being accomplished, which is real time bi-directional communication over the wireless network. The Nunchuk tells our motor controller what to do and the controller figures out the best way to do it. What isn't shown is the GUI which shows our telemetry data. It will probably be shown publicly in a few weeks. We still have a lot of testing and refining left to do on the motor controller which is #1 priority at the moment. Our next step is sourcing batteries so our AMAV can leave the test bed. Hopefully we will get these faster than our last few shipments which were stuck in limbo.

The impression of having manual control of the AMAV? Powerful. Revving the 4 motors is intoxicating. We're not even putting out full power for safety reasons. I can't wait to see it at its maximum.

Jaime has been bugging me to upload some pictures and videos.. Sorry for the late response but here are some tests videos. Enjoy :)

I uploaded some pictures of the project on Google. Zaid is busy with low level logic so I don't want to bug him anymore.

Strangely, we have taken lots of pictures of the robot but haven't put them online yet. I'm going to bug Zaid since he owns the camera we've been using.

What we're up to now? We're getting our PCBs ready for manufacturing. Hopefully we will have them in our hands soon.

The frame is getting a complete work over. We reinforced it to reduce vibrations and make it much more rigid. It's rotor shield is done in Autocad (thanks to a helpful SAE member) and we're trying to get authorization to use the Mechanical Engineering's tools for manufacturing. We're from the Electrical side of Engineering so we are not equipped to deal with manufacturing chassis parts but we have more than enough soldering irons!

I've been coding up a storm trying to get everything to communicate with each other. We have so many things talking that we need to keep things organized. Now, I hope Zaid gets those photos up so everyone can see what we're up to.

Hello all,

We've finished our phase 2 report and are now preparing for our phase 2 presentation. Stuff we've done, we have GUI that tracks and saves our telemetry data. Recently found a performance bug in the GUI, I think we're taking in more information than the GUI can process. Otherwise, it works fine and saves into a file that is editable with Excel.

The AMAV is still under construction and we're getting our schematics ready for PCB'ing. We've just received our IMU and notice its not very as accurate as we liked. We're experimenting with it to see where the errors are coming from. We're going to implement the hover algorithm and start flight testing.

We've also received our sonars which will keep our AMAV away from walls. They work but its annoying to get echos and bad readings at wall corners. Wireless communication works and we've started our base API. We've set up our software to receive network connections so our PC software can route instructions from different machines. Things are going well and we thank our sponsors for the help in getting us the parts we need.

So, after the exams period and holidays, we're back in action.

Right now we're waiting for a few components, in the meanwhile we're preparing the design report, the second of the three deliverable reports that we need to submit to the university. It will have details on all alternatives evaluations, technical survey's and most importantly the detailed design for all aspects of the project. Right after that we'll be presenting the design to our supervisor and technical coordinator.

On the quadrotor side, we're working on implementing the control algorithm for stable flight, once done, we'll focus on the navigation and obstacle avoidance aspect.

We'll be posting some videos of the control tests once implemented.

Unfortunately, the entire team is busy with exams at the moment and haven't had time to update the blog. Next semester, I believe we will have a lot more to talk about since we will finally be working on the core problems of the project. 


Our project is going well at the moment. We are in the middle of building our prototype now. We have some of our sensors but we're having problems calibrating them. When we test them without the motors, the readings are vague but at least knew the orientation of the chassis. When the motors are spinning, the chassis vibrates enough that the sensors gives us garbage data. We're trying to smooth out the data and see if that works. Its too bad we encountered the problem right as we go into our exams since we can't spend a lot of time debugging it. 


We have the motors working and we can control each one individually. We only have 2 motors at the moment for simplicity's sake. Now if we can get good sensor readings, we can start the automation logic. 


We still have not chosen a final battery design since we're still trying to figure out our optimal weight to charge ratio. We can't get the biggest battery since it makes our AMAV harder to fly but we can't get a light one because the charge may be too little. We are currently seeking sponsorship and suggestions to help us find the best batteries for our AMAV. I personally would like to see an ultra capacitor or a fuel cell since they're are hot subject at the moment. At the moment we're looking at Li-Pos since that seems to be the popular choice among RC hobbyists. 


I don't know if we will have any more updates until after Christmas, so I wish our supervisor, sponsors, supporters, friends, and family, a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday. 

We've received the motors and ESCs from our sponsors Scorpion. This video shows one of our first tests on one of the motors an S-2215-22 where the motor was tied to the frame which was tied to our testbed. It was controlled by a micro-controller that was receiving commands to increment and decrement the speed of the motor from a PC through a Zigbee wireless link.

Today, we were trying out wireless communications and sensors. Nothing major, just trying to lay down an understanding of our equipement.

We've created these animations to illustrate the operation of a quadrotor in a presentation to our coordinators and supervisor. For illustration, the rotors are moving slowly, to show their relative angular speeds and rotation direction.

We will periodically add pictures and video of our build to our Flickr account. Feel free to view and comment our project.