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| Pinned: Thursday, May 7, 2009 | Ben Chociej |
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The Final Report for the 2008-2009 academic year has been written and posted. It can be viewed at link below or in the documents section.
2008-2009 Final Report [pdf] |
| Pinned: Project Summary: Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance UAV |
The Vanderbilt Aerospace Club is a student organization on Vanderbilt Campus. It is run by engineering students with the guidance of faculty advisor Dr. A.V. Anilkumar. We are financed by NASA, the Tennessee Space Grant Consortium, the Tennessee Chapter of the AIAA, and the Vanderbilt Department of Mechanical Engineering. Each year the Vanderbilt Aerospace Club sponsors a Senior Design Project. The club membership consists of engineering students chosen to participate in the Senior Design Project. At this time, the function of the club and the Senior Design Project is to compete in the NASA USLI Competition, and also to present the project at the regional AIAA Student Conference, as well as all of the various functions for the Engineering Design Day.
This year's project is the development of a Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The rocket which delivers the UAV to altitude is powered by an M-class motor, and is 10 inches in diameter and about 16-feet tall. It features a 6-foot-long payload tube which houses the UAV, contained in a protective foam shell called a Sabot. The UAV itself is in many ways more complicated than the rocket. It carries a 500-mhz onboard computer, and various sensors and electronic devices including a GPS tracking unit, 3-axis linear accelerometers, 3-axis roll rate sensors, an airspeed indicator, and a barometric altitude indicator. There is a forward-facing camera for navigation. The reconnaissance package consists of a high-resolution digital camera on a tilt-pan gimbal, paired with an infrared thermometer that reads out the temperature of whatever target the camera is pointed towards. It is propelled by a 11x8 folding propeller, powered by a 4-cell lipo battery. The following is a running log of our progress and work on our project, titled the "Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance UAV." |
| Tuesday, May 12th | Ben Chociej | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Website Overhaul Update: we're still waiting on some server upgrades here at Vanderbilt before rolling out the new design... it'll be up as soon as possible! Ben Chociej, your new webmaster here. Just wanted to give our followers a heads up about some upcoming changes to the website. We hope to have a completely new design in place by our target date of June 1 for the Vanderbilt Aerospace Club's web presence. Take a look at the preview below—just click for a larger view! -Ben  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, May 11th | Prof. A. V. Anilkumar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Outreach Update On May 11, 2009, the Vanderbilt Aerospace Club hosted about twenty five students and three instructors from the School of Science & Math @ Vanderbilt to a lecture, demonstration, and tour of our Aerospace Engineering activities. Students and instructors visited the Aerospace Club shop, Rapid Prototyping Machine, and Laser Cutter as part of their tour. James Board, Ty Barringer and Skylar Dalley showcased our activities to these students on a rotating basis. Following this, Robin Midgett our safety officer demonstrated a rocket static burn test outside Olin Hall (terrace side).  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, May 8th | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Signing Off This year has been a nonstop adventure, filled with excitement and learning. We've progressed unbelievably far since the beginning of the year, learning a great deal about aerospace engineering, teamwork, and ourselves. Things did not turn out exactly as I had hoped, but I'm nonetheless impressed with how far we came as a team. The catastrophe of April 18th was truly heartbreaking and will undoubtedly haunt me for the rest of my life, but the fact of the matter is that we tackled an incredibly ambitious project, and inevitably a combination of poor weather conditions and overextended and exhausted team members brought us down. But, looking past that 90-second block of my life, I see a year filled with triumph and success. In two semesters - in fact mostly in just 1 semester - we designed and built 3 different airplanes. We test flew each one, as well as our electronics-bearing telemaster, in a total of probably 30 test flights. I hope that this years team will leave a legacy for future Vanderbilt Aerospace Club members, and that the knowledge we've acquired will prove useful to future teams. I've done my best to document all of our work, and I did everything humanly possible to see this team through to the end. We got 3rd place in the AIAA Student Conference, amongst groups of Aerospace Engineers, from much more technical schools. Our project was awarded the "most innovative" award from the Vanderbilt Department of Mechanical Engineering. Several of our members have gotten serious job offers as a result of their involvement in this project. And I got the departmental Leadership award for my work with the club. Looking back, I hope that none of us have any regrets. We had fun, we had successes, and inevitably we had tragedies. We're all wiser, older, and better people and engineers for our involvement in this project. I will forever cherish the time I spent here at Vanderbilt, and especially the many, many hours I labored away in Olin Hall 413 - the Vanderbilt Aerospace Club. Thanks, everyone, for an amazing year.  Here's the "full project slideshow," which documents the journey of our work this year. It's been fun, guys. -Will | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, April 24th | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This morning we gave a presentation to the Mechanical Engineering External Advisory Committee (VUME: EAC) about our project. We were one of only 2 or 3 senior design projects given this honor. They seemed to like our presentation. The presentation we gave can be found below: ME EAC Presentation I also finally got around to uploading the maiden flight videos of the POC#2 and Competition UAV. They came out pretty nice. The resolution is a little shaky, and I cropped each one down to just a minute or two so your ADD doesn't run wild and prevent you from watching the whole thing. Here's the maiden flight of the Competition UAV - And here's the maiden flight of the 2nd Proof of Concept UAV - | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, April 22nd | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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On Saturday, April 18th, we launched our Senior Design project, entitled the Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance UAV. As some of you know already, the launch was a catastrophe. I won't go into great depth here. If you want the full story you'll have to read our Final Report, which will be posted on May 8th. Here's the short story: One of our body tubes had been slightly damaged in a previous accident after our Test Launch. We did a "quick and dirty" repair, but should have paid more attention. As the rocket climbed through 2,000', it hit a strong wind shear. This, coupled with the slightly weakened body tube, caused the nose of the rocket to come out of alignment with the tail section, as the motor finished its burn. The rocket banana'd, and the motor basically caused the rocket to disintegrate. During the ensuring gyrations around 2,500' AGL, the nose cone came loose from the payload section. When this happened, the pressure vessel responsible for deploying the UAV was ruptured. When the UAV deployment charges fired, since the tube was already open, the pressure spike failed to deploy the UAV. The UAV came about half way out of the rocket, and stayed there as the payload section descended with no parachute from 2,500 to ground level. The drogue parachute on the payload section deployed, but was ripped off because the rocket was still ascending at this point. The drogue parachute on the tail section deployed, but mysteriously has disappeared. The tail section main parachute deployed late, and zippered the tube, but brought the tail section down basically in tact. The midsection was completely destroyed. The payload section landed hard, but is essentially in tact. The nose cone was badly damaged. The UAV's wing was split in half, and the fuselage was badly damaged. Before I go any further, I'd like to take a moment to thank a lot of different people. Florida Tech, Tuskeegee, and various other institutions and individuals had pictures of our launch, and have graciously provided those pictures to us to use in our failure analysis. We also have 2 videos of the launch, one taken by our own Robin Midgett, and one taken by one of Randy's friends. These things have been very helpful in analyzing what all went wrong. A lot of things went wrong, and we're still sorting through all of it, but the Final Report will be the definitive source on what all went wrong and how it impacted our launch. Again, the central failure was a structural weakening of a small portion of the rocket body, coupled with wind shear. The rest is basically history. And now for the pictures. These come from at least 3 or 4 different sources, including Florida Institute of Technology, Tuskeegee University, our own camera, and the camera of some of our team member's family. If anyone else has pictures of our launch, we'd be grateful, as they may help to shed light on the problems our rocket encountered.                                   What are our Plans? The senior design team responsible for delivering a reconnaissance UAV is being held to that task. The airplane is being repaired, and will fly again. We hope to have the aircraft fully repaired by early next week. Some members of next year's team are working on our rocket, repairing and replacing parts as necessary. This project will be brought to completion, in the form of a successful demonstration of our Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance UAV. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, April 17th | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yesterday we went down to Huntsville with our Rocket and UAV for the USLI Rocket Fair and Safety Inspection. We passed the safety inspection with no issues at all, and I think we were a big hit at the rocket fair. It's easy to draw attention when you're just inside the door and you've got the biggest rocket in the room. I think all of us got asked "what motor do you use?" at least a few dozen times. It was a fun day. Tomorrow we're headed back down to Hutnsville for our Competition Launch, which is indisputably the most important day of the year for this team. T-Minus 24 hours, and still plenty of little things to tidy up or correct before we can launch. In the meantime, I finally got around to uploading the pictures from our test flight on Wednesday. On Wednesday evening, a few hours before we left for Huntsville, we went back out to Peeler Park with our Telemaster and the ground station to test the Wifi link. We'd had trouble with it on Tuesday when the plane was at ranges of maybe 50-500 feet, but I had a hunch that a high-gain omnidirectional antenna would resolve that, if used in conjunction with our high-gain grid antenna. Ben Chociej had some trouble getting the Single Board computer to boot. We sat around picking the grass and watching Randy fly one of his personal planes while Ben was troubleshooting the issue. Eventually he got it corrected, and we were ready to fly. We didn't use any of the video transmitters (they were already installed into the Competition UAV), hence the dangling wires coming off the Patch antennas. We flew the Wifi, Single Board Computer, and GPS. Ben reported that the Wifi connection was practically as good as if we had an ethernet wire running out to the plane, even at long distances. Randy flew around for a while, and when we were content that the Wifi link was rock solid, we called it a day. Here are some pictures. Finally ready to go. Thomas Carroll buttons down the wing while Randy supervises.  Flying off into the sunset.  I ran over and snapped this shot after Randy made the first pass. On the screen is a map display, with the blue line tracing the Telemaster's route.  Now, at longer ranges, Thomas Carroll is carefully aiming the grid antenna. Ben sits back to admire his work, and Randy's daughter supervises.  I took this shot with the high-zoom telephoto lens when the plane was really, really far away. Barely anything more than a spec with the naked eye. Still, the wifi connection is good and everything is working.  After a long, glorious flight, the battery finally started to die, so Randy brought it in for the typical, beautiful, safe centerline landing that we've all come to love him for.  When we got back into the lab, Ben loaded up the flight path into Google Maps so that we could see the entire flight path in 3 dimensions, overlaid on satellite imagery. The satellite imagery for Peeler Park is a few years old - before they resurfaced the runway and added the centerline and approach end markings - but you get the picture. The squiggly lines at low altitude are from us carrying the plane around at awkward attitudes with poor GPS lock. The line coming in from the bottom left corner is us carrying the plane back to the starting point.  An overhead view of the Telemaster's flight path.  Ok, well that's it for now. This afternoon and evening we're making the final preparations to the UAV - installing the Single Board Computer, making sure everything is secure, and tidying up the wiring. Then it's just a matter of checking everything over one last time, and packing the van for the trip back to Huntsville. T-minus 24 hours. Wish us luck! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, April 15th | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I came in a little early to the lab this morning, so I could get in before anyone was going to work on the UAV. I pieced it all mostly together and took a few photos. There's still some stuff missing; I didn't install the springs for the wing or V-Tails. And, since we're flying the Telemaster this afternoon, some stuff is still on that plane (Wifi transmitter, SBC, GPS, etc). But on the whole, this is about how the plane will look for competition (And hopefully, after competition). We're going to work on it some more this afternoon to get ready for the Rocket Fair and Safety Inspection, and the plane will be ready to fly for Competition before we leave for Huntsville tonight. It's pretty exciting to see all those dreams and ideas finally come together in one tidy package. We've all put so much time and effort into this thing, it's fantastic to see it look like a plane, with the cameras and computer systems installed. Cool stuff. Here are some pictures. The Competition UAV.  I labeled some of the interesting components that were visible.  From the front.  From the rear.  And here's a picture of the UAV with the wing rotated and v-tails folded back, tucked into the Sabot.  That's me on the left, and Thomas Bowden on the right.  In about 2 hours we're going to fly the Telemaster one last time. A few hours after that, we're leaving for Huntsville with basically everything. I'll try to remember to take some pictures in Huntsville of the rocket fair, but it will be a busy day. T-minus 60 hours. Stay tuned! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, April 14th | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This morning we went out and flew the Telemaster. We were carrying the forward-facing camera and its transmitter (NAVCAM), as well as the Single Board Computer, the GPS device, and the and the Wifi transmitter/receiver. We've got the moving map GPS display on the ground station working (tested out in the lab), and we were hoping to verify the same setup on the airborne platform. Here are some pictures from this morning. Setting up the Single Board computer prior to flight.  Installing the wing to the Telemaster prior to flight.  Manning the ground station just prior to takeoff.  The takeoff roll.  Flying the pattern.  Final approach to landing.  Also, I just uploaded the video captured from the forward-facing camera to YouTube. For this flight, the NAVCAM, a Sony KX-191, was mounted on a tilt-pan gimbal on the hood of the Telemaster. In the Competition UAV, this camera is on a fixed mount in the wing, looking through a transparent window in the leading edge. The video is a little rough in a few spots - when the antenna operator stopped paying attention or lost track of the plane - but on the whole it came out pretty nice. Here's the video: Unfortunately, we lost the Wifi connection shortly after takeoff. The single board computer was operating properly, as was the GPS and the airborne wifi connection. We're pretty sure that we've got a "midrange" connection problem. At close ranges, the antenna directionality and orientation don't matter, because all the antennas are transmitting with so much power that everything is saturdated anyway. And, at long ranges, the plane is moving slowly with respect to the observer, and it is easier to keep the plane within the beam width of the highly directional antenna being used for wifi. However, at medium ranges, perhaps between 50-500 feet between the plane and the tripod. the plane is moving fast relative to the observer, and it is difficult to keep the aircraft within the beam width of the antenna. For this reason, we lost the wifi connection between the ground and the aircraft. To alleviate this problem, we're going to be supplementing the highly-directional high-gain antenna with an omnidirectional 8dBi antenna. This will permit good connectivity at ranges of up to about a quarter mile, and then at longer ranges the grid antenna will be trained on the plane manually by an antenna operator. To test our theory, we've aquired a high-gain omnidirectional antenna, and tomorrow we'll be going back out to Peeler Park to repeat the test. Tomorrow evening 5 of us will be traveling to Huntsville for the USLI Safety Check, so everything has to be basically ready by then. We've been working on the Competition UAV all afternoon (and late into the night), and I'll post some pictures of the finished product tomorrow sometime. It's coming out realy nice. T-minus 4 days. Stay tuned! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Saturday, April 11th | Will Runge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Today we had a pretty full day. This morning we all met up and went through a dry run for "flight operations." We packed the parachutes, assembled the rocket, assembled the launch pad, and put the rocket on the pad as though we were going to launch it. We got all the hardware together, helped some of the newer guys learn about the launch pad and how all of that works, and got in some much-needed practice with assembling the launch pad and rocket. Below are some pictures from that. Getting everything set up.  Posing for a picture. Left to Right, it's Thomas Carroll, Will Runge, Tyler Lamb, and Zach Smith.  After a few hectic hours prepping the plane for one more flight test, Thomas Carroll and I headed out to Peeler Park. Everything was perfect. The plane was basically set up and ready to fly. We spent a few minutes tweeaking a few things, and then were ready to go. The weather was beautiful. No wind, sunny, blue skies. It was amazing. Here's Thomas and I with the plane prior to its first flight of the day.  Looking majestic on the runway in the afternoon summertime light.  Ready for Takeoff!  Flying away gracefully.  A high pass a hundred feet overhead or so.  A daring low-pass. at full speed.  Coming in for a landing.  We've got a little bit more work to do on the plane, but finally the end is in sight. Over the next few days we'll be installing the cameras and flight computer into the airplane, and getting all the rotating mechanisms and spring-loaded V-tails ready to go. There's a little bit of tweaking left to be done, but it is truly refreshing to at last see the plane fly beautifully. Randy reported that he plane flew great, and that it glided really well with the power off. He's not worried about having to add our ~2.5lb payload. In a week we will travel to Huntsville for the Competition Launch and the final salute to our Senior Design Project, the Rocket Launched Reconnaissance UAV.
Friday, April 10th | Will Runge
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I updated the Awards page to reflect our 3rd place finish in the 2009 AIAA Region 2 conference (Team Division). This afternoon we'll be casting and carving out the foam encasing for the UAV - the Sabot. Tomorrow morning we're going to do a "dry run" of our launch operations procedures, loading the UAV in the sabot, into the rocket, assembling the rocket, and putting it on the pad as though we were going to actually launch it. Tomorrow afternoon we'll hopefully be flight testing our Competition UAV, once again sans payload, as well as the Telemaster.
| For the Telemaster, we're hoping to fly: - The Single Board Computer, with a Wifi connection to the ground, - The Forward-Facing Camera - The GPS (with moving map display on the ground - using the Wifi uplink) - The Reconnaissance camera, - And possibly also the custom printed circuit board with Heller's circuitry on it for 3-axis infromation etc. Should be pretty interesting. For the Competition UAV, we're installing new, wider-base landing gear, and new V-Tails. The old V-Tails were fiberglass-on-foam, and they were unsightly, didn't save any weight, and one of them was slightly damaged during handling. Thomas Bowden is making the new ones today, which will use the same 2-lb polystyrene foam core, with a 3.76 oz carbon fiber lamination. If everything goes according to plan on Saturday afternoon, wer'e hoping to get back out there on Sunday or Monday, to fly the Competition UAV with the full electronics/reconnaissance suite removed installed. Should be exciting!
Wednesday, April 8th | Will Runge
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This evening, after a very late night, an early morning, and a very full day preparing the airplane, we successfully flight tested the Competition UAV. As usual, there are a number of areas for minor improvement, but on the whole the plane flew fairly well and I consider it to have been a success. We damaged the propeller during the first takeoff, but after a replacement was installed, the aircraft was flown around the pattern and safely landed. A "breakaway" landing gear, mounted via nylon bolts, was used, and due to a hard landing, the gear broke away. We've also got to tweak our motor thrust angle, and perhaps use a different, wider landing gear for flight testing, but once in the air the plane flew fairly well and was recovered intact. | We also took along the Telemaster, which, at the hands of Ben Chociej, now is equipped with our Single Board Computer, Wifi, GPS, NAVCAM, and transmits data for an instantaneous moving map display. Unfortunately, the SBC was being somewhat finicky, and we never got to a point of being ready to fly the telemaster. We're hoping to get back out to Peeler Park on Saturday afternoon, to again flight test the Competition UAV, and hopefully also to fly our Telemaster, potentially with all of the systems onbaord. Anyway, here are the pictures. Prepping the UAV for its maiden flight. From left to right, it's Thomas Carroll, Thomas Bowden, Ben Chociej, Kyser Miree (in the background), Doug Whiteacker, and Randy Moore.  Ready to fly! From Left to Right, Ben Chociej, Thomas Carroll, Will Runge, Thomas Bowden, and Kyser Miree.  Headed to the Runway, in the hands of Thomas Bowden.  Ready for takeoff!  Liftoff!  Into the sunset.  Turning Downwind.  Belly landing after the gear broke away on the hard landing  Trying fruitlessly to get the computer systems setup onboard the Telemaster.  We're going to head back out on Saturday afternoon to set the record straght. With some minor tweaking, the Competition UAV should be ready for smooth stable flight. The Telemaster will fly on Saturday, carrying the SBC, GPS, Wifi, NAVCAM, and possibly also the Reconnaissance Camera and custom Printed Circuit Board. Stay tuned!
Sunday, April 5th | Will Runge
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Well, we made some considerable headway on the Competition UAV, thank goodness. T-Minus 12 days and we're all pretty stressed out. I hollowed out the fuselage and the nose cowl, removing the blue foam mold using acetone. Ben got the ruddervators mounted on the V-Tails, and finished the motor mounting. While we were at the conference, Thomas Carroll got the balsa spar installed and the wing halves connected. After conferring with Randy and his friend Doug Whiteacker, we decided to use 1/16th-inch balsa to sheet the wing. At Doug's house, and with lots of help from Randy and Doug, we got the sheeting put together, prepped the wing and sheeting, and, using a thin laminating epxoy, got the sheeting attached to the wing. We used Mr. Whiteacker's vacuum bagging setup, so we'll go out there tomorrow morning to pick up the wing. We'll be using a solid balsa leading edge, cut from 1/4th-inch balsa stock, and we'll be doing a similar setup for the trailing edge. This will be a little bit more work, and more time consuming, but it'll hopefully result in a lighter, stronger wing. Here are some pcitures from our work over the past few days. | Tyler with the new 58"-span wing, ready to be sheeted.  Bowden, prepping the 1/16th-inch sheeting.  Ben's motor mount, with the cowl in the background.  The V-Tails, with the ruddervators installed, ready for covering and servo installation.  Our wing, sheeted, in the vacuum bag before the vacuum starts to take effect.  Under the full vacuum of 7 inHg at Mr. Whiteacker's house.  We've got some late nights between now and then, but I'm really hoping to have our Competition UAV ready for flight testing sans payload on Wednesday. That'll be the 8th, leaving us 10 days to get the electronics payload installed, flight test with that hopefully at least once or twice, and then the big day, April 18th. Tomorrow we'll be installing the ailerons and aileron servos, the ruddervator servos, getting the wing rotation mechanism set up, running all the control wires, and doing everything else we can to get this thing ready. We're tired, but there's no time to rest. We're on the home stretch now!
Saturday, April 4th | Will Runge
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This past week, Matt Heller, Thomas Bowden, Tyler Lamb, and I presented our project at the AIAA Region 2 student conference, in Huntsville, Alabama. We attended a lot of interesting talks from other groups, and learned a great deal. We toured the Propulsion Research Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and also got to tour the Space and Rocket Center at NASA Marshall. On Thursday morning we gave a 20 minute talk entitled the "Rocket Deployed Reconnaissance UAV." This was a streamlined and refined version of our FRR Presentation to NASA-MSFC for the USLI competition. Our presentation won 3rd place in the Team Division. | The slideshow from our award-winning presentation can be downloaded below: 2009 Vanderbilt Aerospace Club AIAA Presentation. (Won 3rd Place in the Team Division at the Region 2 AIAA Conference.) Now it's back to work on the plane.... The spar is installed into the wing, and we'll be sheeting the wing today or tomorrow. Final assembly (wing sheeting, hinges, control surfaces, servos, motor, etc) will be today and tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be completely ready to fly by mid-week. The deadlines are closing in!
Wednesday, April 1st | Will Runge
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Today we gave a 12 minute presentation to our Senior Design class. Basically it was a truncated, streamlined version of the FRR. That went over very well, and I think people were impressed and pleased with our presentation and our progress. I've uploaded that document for future reference. | 12 Minute Senior Design Presentation We also made a lot of progresss on our UAV. The Fuselage is laid up, the nose cowl is laid up, the V-Tails are laid up, and as of today the wing is well on its way. Tyler spent some time cutting out the honeycomb pattern from the wing to save weight. It looks nice, and netted about a 20% reduction in the weight of the raw foam. It'll be interesting to see what the total weight savings come out to after we do the balsa sheeting, but in any case, every ounce counts. Here's a picture of Tyler marking out the grid for the honeycomb.  Starting to cut the honeycomb.  Almost done....  Tomorrow we're finalizing our presentation for the Region 2 AIAA Student Conference, which is Thursday and Friday. We'll be leaving tomorrow night, giving our presentation sometime Thursday most likely, and hopefully get back by Saturday to get back to work here. We're hoping to have the UAV ready for flight testing by mid next week. Stay tuned!
Monday, March 30th | Will Runge
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The FRR Presentation went well. All the information was presented clearly and accurately, and I think they liked our presentation on the whole. They had a few questions for us, and gave us some items to further clarify or to take another look at, but on the whoe I think we're on the right track. They requested some follow-up information, including the attendance of our final outreach opportunity, which I guess has to do with the "Outreach" award, and they also want to know what frequencies we'll be using on Competition Day so that they can ensure there is no interference between teams. | This afternoon we gave a presentation to a Quality Control Engineer from ATK Space Systems, on the request of Dr. Barnett, one of the Senior Design advisors. She gave us a ~30 minute talk about her work, and we gave her a ~15 minute talk about ours. Some of our non-seniors are looking for internships with aerospace companies, and one or two of the seniors are still shopping for jobs. She made it sound like ATK was in need of both interns and employees, so a few of our guys will be sending her their resumes. Hopefully that will work out! This evening, and over the weekend and the past few days, we've been working frantically on the Competition UAV. With T-Minus 18 days until competition launch, we've established a very aggressive timeline to make sure we get everything built and tested prior to Competition Day. Molds were completed by last Thursday afternoon, and all the parts will be laid up by Tuesday night. Final assembly - motor, servos, wing rotation mechanism, etc - will be completed by the end of the weekend. I'm hoping to be ready for standalone flight testing by next Wednesday. Here are some pictures of the parts being made. Here's a picture of Kyser laying up our new Fuselage. This one is 4" longer than the other one, to make sure we have enough room for all the internals.  Here's Ben Havrilesko, with his Motor Cowling.  Here's Carroll, finishing up the shaping of one of the wing halves. We've extended our wingspan to 58", from 48". This should help support the extra weight of the payload.  And here's Bowden, laying up one of the V-Tails, with the finished Motor Cowling at his right elbow.  In the meantime, Ben Chociej has got the new SBC completely up and running. The long-range wifi device is working, and he's got the GPS coordinates coming down to a custom display on the ground station computer. This afternoon we went up on the 25th Ave parking garage and scoped out some places for potential range testing of the Wifi uplink and video feeds. We found another parking garage that will give us a little over a mile of range with line of sight, so hopefully tomorrow afternoon he'll be setting up the ground station antenna array on top of the 25th garage and I'll be driving over to the other parking garage and holding up the SBC and its antennas and cameras to see if all the feeds are working. Should be interesting. With just 18 days till launch, we're going to be busy, busy, busy. Stay tuned!
Thursday, March 26th | Will Runge
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We've made considerable progress on a number of fronts over the last few days. The wind tunnel studies are finally going full-steam. The model is completely assembled, mounted on the sting in the wind tunnel, and a few preliminary experiments were conducted yesterday. After a little bit of tweaking, the full series of studies will be completed this weekend. We also got in our new Single Board Computer yesterday, and Ben and Matt worked through the night getting that set up. It runs a 2nd generation of Linux, and features a 1 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM. Working late last night, they were able to get the Long-Range 500 mW, 2.4 GHz wifi device working. The GPS receiver should be working by the end of the night, and after that it's a matter of interfacing the custom PCB and the sensory systems. Matt also managed to take our Fluke 568 Infrared Thermometer apart. Originally the sensor and optics were fixed to the circuit board in such a way that would prevent the device from being mounted on a gimbal in our plane. Matt managed to detach the sensor and optics and run an extension so that the circuit board can be placed separate from the sensor. This will permit the sensor to be mounted to the camera, on a gimbal, while the circuit board is nearby elsewhere in the plane. | Here's a picture of the 1/6th scale model in the wind tunnel here on campus.  Here's a picture of Matt and Ben working on the new SBC and the wifi device for it.  Here's a picture of the new SBC up close with some of the USB headers hooked up so we can plug in the solid-state memory we're using to boot and also the wifi and GPS devices.  That's it for now. Tomorrow bright and early we're giving our FRR presentation. That presentation was updated, so you can find the new version here: Updated FRR Presentation.. The Competition UAV is well underway. We have the molds for the fuselage, wing halves, wing center. Cowl and V-tails are on the way, and we'll start laying it up this weekend. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, March 24th | Will Runge
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This is the slideshow of basically all the pictures from this year. I think it came out pretty nice. I'm hoping to add music, and once the competition UAV is built, pictures of that and the competition launch as well, of course. For your viewing pleasure --
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Monday, March 23rd | Will Runge
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On Saturday afternoon we had another very successful outreach program. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts came to Vanderbilt Campus. We set up in the Atrium of Featheringhill Hall and in FGH 134, the big lecture hall in the same building. We brought our competition rocket from last year, our POC#1 and POC#2 aircraft, as well as the Telemaster and some other rockets. We explained each of the mini-projects, gave a brief slideshow of the project, and then did a static rocket demonstration. A small rocket was fixed to a launch pad. The motor burned while the rocket sat on the pad, the parachutes were ejected, and the whole process was explained to the kids. On the whole it was a very successful program. Below are some pictures from that. | The setup in the Atrium. Unfortunately it came out blurry, but you get the idea.  Training to fly RC airplanes.  Prepping the static rocket launch display.  Motor burnout.  Parachute ejection.  In other news, there were a lot of neat graphics that made it into the FRR that I'd never shown on the website previously, for whatever reason. Some of them came out pretty nice, so I've uploaded those pictures to be displayed here. UAV, packaged inside the Sabot, inside the paylaod tube of our rocket.  Setting up one of the load quantification studies on the wing.  The +1G loading scenario, and the resulting stress throughout the wing.  A ProE model of the internal component placement for our Competition UAV. In this picture, I labeled what's what. This model was made by Ty Barringer, and it came out really nice, despite being just a rough display.  Same as above.  Same as above, but from below.  From above.  This is a block diagram of the flow of information in our flight team for competition day. Made by me in Visio.  A new version of the deployment sketch, with the new altitudes displayed. We changed our UAV deployment altitude to 1,200 AGL to keep the UAV within visual range and inside of Class G airspace.  This is a diagram detailing the directionality and frequency of each of our 3 primary antennas on the ground. 1.2 GHz carries the video feed from the reconnaissance camera (R-CAM), 2.4 GHz carries the wifi uplink, and 900 MHz carries the video feed from the forward-facing camera (NAVCAM). Graphic by Kyser Miree.  This graphic details the method we're hoping to use to lighten our wing, by cutting out a honeycomb of the solid foam core in areas that are not highly loaded, and then reinforcing with a carbon fiber spar.  Well, that's about it for now. We're frantically working on our next UAV, which will be very similar to the 2nd Proof of Concept UAV, but with a number of key innovations to reduce weight and improve the flight characteristics with our heavy electronics/reconnaissance payload. I'm also working in the meantime on a slideshow of all the interesting pictures taken durnig the course of this project, which will hopefully over the course of a few minutes detail all the work we've put into this thing. As soon as YouTube starts working again I'll have it uploaded and added to this post. In the meantime, stay tuned for pictures of our next UAV!
Saturday, March 21st | Will Runge
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After experiencing a number of technical difficulties, we've at last got our FRR and the PowerPoint presentation uploaded to the website. Access the report and the presentation below: | FRR Report FRR Presentation
Monday, March 16th | Will Runge
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Yesterday, we launched our Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance UAV. The day was a huge success. The UAV was safely deployed from the rocket, and flown around for several minutes. The rocket was recovered entirely intact. The UAV landing was less than perfect, for reasons that I'll go into below, and so it encountered minor damage, but is easily repairable. Here's my favorite picture of day, before I go into great detail. | The UAV being flown for a pass near by the payload tube as it descends under a parachute.  Now for the fully detailed report - Dr. Overholser, the Dean of the School of Engineering, was along, with his 5-year-old grandson, and so we'd prepared a small, simple rocket for his Grandson to launch. We spent some time preparing that while we set up the launch pad, and then we launched it off pretty soon after we arrived at the launch site in Manchester, Tennessee. As soon as that was taken care of, we dove into launch-prepping our Rocket. That consisted of checking the altimeter settings, loading up the charges, making a few small tweaks here and there. Two minor problems popped up. First, there was a minor fitment problem with one of the rocket sections that required some last-minute sanding to remedy. Second, the set screws for the terminals on some of our altimeters disappeared, due to having been transported with the set screws loose. So we had to have Matt solder directly to the base of the terminals so that we could twist wires into what used to be a screw-terminal. As soon as that was taken care of, we loaded up the charges, hooked up everything, switched on the UAV, packaged it into sabot, put everything together, and put the rocket on the launch pad. Without terribly much delay, we were ready to launch. We sent 2 spotters downwind with Randy to help him spot the UAV and also to help ensure that falling rocket parts would not distract him from his job of piloting the UAV to a safe landing. The rocket flew well, although it immediately cocked into the wind after clearing the launch pad. It flew to a beautiful apogee at approximately 1,900' AGL, which is about 90 feet short of our updated Rocksim model (which was corrected for some added weight which was not previously taken into account). Presumably because of the large drogue parachute used on the tail section, the shear pins failed, permitting the tail section main parachute to deploy prematurely, near to apogee, which caused some extra drift, but nothing too problematic. The UAV deployed cleanly. Randy was able to quickly identify it, recover, and fly around for 5 or 10 minutes. He made several passes near the rocket parts as they descended under their respective parachutes. Unfortunately, as he came in to land the plane became unstable and it crashed. He was able to retract the landing gear before impact, but the wing was cracked and the fuselage slightly damaged. We suspect that some of the ballast used in the nose of the plane broke loose during deployment. Then, when he came in to land, he pitched the aircraft up as he slowed down, which caused the loose ballast to slide back in the fuselage, moving the center of gravity aft in the plane and ultimately resulting in a loss of flight stability. Overall, despite the minor damage to the UAV, we consider the launch to have been a huge success. We've got a very busy couple of days as we finish the Flight Readiness Review, which is due on Wednesday. But in the mean time we're basking in the glory of our successful test launch, and enjoying the fact that everything worked the way we designed it to work. Here are the pictures from the test launch. The small rocket, launched Dean Overholser's grandson.  Another of the small rocket, the "Stealth."  Prepping the UAV for flight.  Wiring up the altimeters. Kyser is wearing the face shield.  Loading the sabot (and UAV!) into the rocket.  Ready to go to the launch pad. From left to right, it's Zach Smith, Thomas Carroll (Tyler Lamb partially obscured), Matt Heller, (Will Runge partially obscured), Kyser Miree (Randy in background), Thomas Bowden, and Ty Barringer.  Carrying the rocket to the pad. Left to right, it's Thomas Bowden, Will Runge, Thomas Carroll, Zach Smith.  Erecting the rocket. In the foreground is Russ Bruner. Left to right is Rodney in orange, Tyler Lamb, Thomas Bowden, Will Runge, and Ty Barringer.  Locking the rocket into the launch position.  Checking the level.  Arming the altimeters via the screw-switches.  Installing the igniters. On the ground is Rodney McMillan (NAR II, Low Explosives User/Dealer) and Russ Bruner in the bomber jacket (NAR III).  Ready to launch.  Liftoff!  Climbing!  There goes our baby....  Getting smaller....  Just a speck now.  Apogee, waiting for the drogue parachutes to be deployed.  Parachutes! At the top is the tail section, under it's red main parachute, with the pink drogue parachute nearby; at the right is the tail section, plainly visible. Down lower is the payload section, under it's red main parachute, with the green drogue parachute down below. UAV is out of frame.  The UAV, in a dive, captured by our ace cameraman Haziq Mazlan. Randy hasn't started pulling up yet.  Randy has recovered, and flies a pass near to the Payload section and nosecone, visible at top right. Randy is hot-dogging it now, making a pass for the camera-man.  In the foreground is Randy, flying, with spotter Kyser Miree on the lookout for stray rocket parts. The payload section is landing nearby.  The tail section comes in to a soft landing.  The mid-section follows the tail-section down.  Anyway, that's it for now. The launch was a huge success, and we were all jumping up and down, excited to see the UAV come away clean for a safe flight. There were a few minor hitches, and always plenty of room for improvement. Stay tuned for the FRR, which will hopefully be complete by Wednesday afternoon.
Friday, March 13th | Will Runge
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Well, we flew the UAV this morning. There were some issues getting it set up that took an hour or two to resolve. Fortunately, our test pilot Randy was very patient and waited around and helped us get the plane set up for its maiden flight. In the end we had to fly without the cowl, and with a non-folding propeller. Finally by around 9:45 we were ready for flight. As it turned out, the motor battery was slightly out of position, which resulted in an aft CG condition. The aircraft was some what unstable, but with considerable effort Randy was able to get it under cotnrol. He also determined that, in addition to the aft CG problem, the motor mounting needs to be aimed down about 2 degrees to decrease the upward thrust. Gliding, the airplane flew great, but the first few minutes of the flight were pretty eventful as Randy fought for control. He was able to bring it in for a beautiful landing and critique the various issues. We're working now to tweak the plane for what will hopefully be a beautiful and uneventful second flight, to be conducted tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting. Here are some pictues from this morning. | From left to right, this is Haziq Mazlan, Thomas Carroll, Will Runge, Ty Barringer, and then the corner of Kyser Miree's yellow jacket.  Ready for the maiden flight. Left to right, this is Will Runge, Ty Barringer, Thomas Carroll, Ben Havrilesko, Kyser Miree, and Haziq Mazlan.  Here's Randy setting up the controller, with Thomas Carroll looking on.  In Flight.  Some mild aerobatics.  Coming in for a beautiful landing.  With our upcoming test launch on Sunday, and then the FRR on Wednesday, we have a very busy couple of days coming up. We're doing the final preparations to the rocket now, making the various improvements to the UAV as suggested by Randy, and getting our launch pad and checklists in order. Stay tuned!
Thursday, March 12th | Will Runge
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Well, unfortunately we weren't able to fly the plane this morning due to weather. Last night, the forecast for this morning was cloudy and calm winds. I woke up early, looked out the window, and saw sleet and frozen rain coming down. We scrubbed flight testing, did a little bit more tweaking on the plane, and are going out again early tomorrow morning. Hopefully the weather will hold. It looks like it might be a little bit breezy, but we're going to try for it and hope for the best. While I was sitting inside glaring out the window at the weather I took some pictures of our UAV, which is now 100% flight ready. |     And here's the UAV with its big friend, our 10"-diameter, 16'-tall rocket.
Wednesday, March 11th | Will Runge
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Tomorrow morning, weather permitting we will be flight testing our Competition UAV. This evening, Randy came by the lab to pre-flight the aircraft. He did a little bit of tweaking of the mixing and the dual-rates for the v-tails and ailerons, and also helped me set up the tail wheel, which is a little bit more difficult when you don't have a rudder to attach the tailwheel to. He said the plane looks good, and he thinks it should fly well. We're meeting him at Peeler Park at noon to fly the plane, and hopefully we'll be back tomorrow afternoon with pictures of our new UAV in flight. I've got a few pictures of the final preparations being done on the airplane. | Also, on an unrelated note, Ryan spent several hours this afternoon preparing samples for the load testing of our carbon fiber fins. Originally the rocket, which is basically a modfied kit, comes with plywood fins. In order to save weight and help move the center of gravity further forward, we've laid up our own carbon fiber fins. There is no easy way to analyze the loading on the rocket fins during flight or when the rocket hits the ground, but tensile strength is a good overall indication of strength, and so we're doing a tensile test of samples of the original plywood fins and of our new carbon fiber fins. Ryan is undertaking that study. Here are some pictures.... Here Ryan is cutting out samples from an extra carbon fiber fin.  Here are the samples, all lined up and ready for testing.  Here's Thomas Carroll soldering on a Deans connector to the 4-cell, 5000 mAh Lipo for our UAV.  Ben is dremeling down some wood screws used to attach the V-Tails to the UAV.  Here is the guide that we used for selecting the motor. To play it safe, we input a weight of 7.5 lb (120 oz) for our airplane, which is somewhat heavier than it will actually end up being. This is a screenshot from the Axi Motor Selection tool. The power setup for our competition UAV is outlined - Axi 2826/10, 11x8 propeller, 4-cell 5000 mAh Lipo battery, 70A opto speed controller.  Here's Randy pre-flighting our UAV in preparation for flight testing tomorrow moring.  Anyway, that's it for now. Stay tuned for flight pictures tomorrow!
Sunday, March 6th | Will Runge
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Well, the UAV is actually starting to look like an airplane, so I felt obliged to post some pictures of our progress over the last few days. Bowden and I have been up here all day every day all weekend plus Friday, and we've got a lot of things figured out and made a lot of progress. We're really hoping to have the airplane basically ready to fly by tomorrow night, so that Randy can come to our lab and inspect it, and then hopefully on Tuesday afternoon we'll go out and flight test it without a payload. It turns out we're 2 parts short of a complete airplane - Hobby Lobby didn't give us one of the Retract Servos, and we also ended up with the wrong electronic speed controller (ESC) for the motor. I'm going to run to Hobby Lobby and get this parts tomorrow morning, and the remaining tasks will be installing the retract servos, installing the firewall and motor, installing the BRS Parachute system, installing the tail wheel, and then just hooking everything up. | Matt Heller has also been up in the lab basically all weekend, and he's making a lot of progress. Earlier today he was controlling servos using a microcontroller programming board through the SBC, over the Wifi uplink, using keyboard inputs. He's promised that he's going to have the custom circuitry ready to be sent off for manufacturing before the end of spring break, so he's churning away on that right now putting the finishing touches on his wiring diagram. Now for some pictures of what we've been up to. Here's Matt using the Oscilloscope to monitor the Pulse Width Modulation signal from the microcontroller being used to control a servo.  This is the cabinet snap we're using to lock the V-Tails into place.  Here's a picture of our UAV in the Cruise configuration, with the landing gear retracted, and the Wing and V-Tails locked into position.  Another picture in the Cruise configuration.  Here it is in the Landing configuration, with the landing gear deployed and locked into the "Down" position.  And, here's the UAV in Packaged configuration. The wing is rotated parallel to the fuselage, spring-loaded ready to deploy, and the V-Tails are similarly folded back [the springs for the v-Tails aren't installed yet.  Again, in the Packaged configuration.  OK, well that's it for now. We've still got a lot of work to do to get this airplane ready to fly, but at least it's starting to look the part. We're really hoping to have it flight ready by the end of the day tomorrow, and, if the weather holds, to begin flight testing on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday. Stay Tuned!
Thursday, March 5th | Will Runge
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Unfortunately, I got really sick for the first half of spring break, so things have been moving a bit slower than I had hoped. In any case, a lot of the basic assembly of the competition UAV is complete. Ruddervators and their servos are installed. Ailerons are installed and I'm installing the aileron servos in a few minutes. The fuselage, wing, v-tails, and nose cowl are all complete. This afternoon I'm going to a hardware store to get some of the basic bits and pieces required to make the wing rotation mechanisms and to permit the V-tails to fold. Matt's been up in the lab all day working hard on the electronics. He got one of the shorter-range Wifi devices working with the SBC, and he's working now to get our long rage (500 mW, 2 dbi) wifi working once and for all. He also said he's going to make a point of getting the custom circuitry sent off for manufacturing before the end of spring break. So things are moving along pretty nicely. Here are some pictures of the UAV assembly process. | One of the V-Tails.  Kyser, with his Fuselage mold.  Kyser, laying up the Fuselage.  The wing, with the Ailerons ready to be installed, and the fuselage.  The UAV. OK, it's not really ready to fly yet, but it sure looks nice.  Again. 
Friday, February 27th | Will Runge
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Well, it's officially spring break. I'm up here working on the wing, and getting geared up to finish the assembly of our Competition UAV over the next week. KYser is finishing up the mold for the fuselage. We made it once before, but it was too heavy as pure carbon fiber. Instead, we're making it as carbon-fiberglass, which will be slightly weaker, but about half as heavy. He's headed off for Mexico bright and early tomorrow morning, which leaves me, Thomas Bowden, Matt Heller, and Haziq Mazlan to work on the project over spring break. | We finished and submitted our AIAA paper, and it looks pretty great. You can find it below. Rocket Based Deployment of a Reconnaissance UAV Stay tuned for more updates as we get into the internal assemblies of this UAV.
Thursday, February 26th | Will Runge
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Well, we've really been getting a lot done over the last 24 hours or so, so I figured I'd go ahead and post some more pictures of our work/progress. Kyser is finishing up the AIAA paper, and I'll be posting that when it's finished, probably early tomorrow morning. Thomas Bowden is shaping the foam for the V-Tails on our Competition UAV, and those should be ready and laid up by the end of the night. And Zach finished putting together the tail section of our rocket, except for our AeroPak motor retention system. On the whole we're really making a lot of progress, and it's going to be a very exciting. Next week (Spring Break), Matt Heller, Haziq Mazlan, Thomas Bowden, and I will all be around for all or most of Spring break. We're hoping to get the Telemaster flying with just about all of the electronics, in addition to doing the final assembly on the Competition UAV (motor installation, servo installation, etc). Anyway, here are the photos from today's work. | This is an updated Conceptual Diagram of the Ground Station that I put together for Kyser to use in the AIAA report and also to be used in our FRR. It reflects the many changes we've made since the CDR, and also captures the full functionality of our pretty complicated and sophisticated Ground Station.  Here's a shot of Bowden shaping the foam for a V-Tail.  And here's a picture of Zach with the finished Tailsection. 
Wednesday, February 25th | Will Runge
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I'm not sure if I mentioned this previously, but last week we implemented a new plan for making sure everyone comes to the lab and puts in their time. Kyser and I had everyone sign up for two nights a week that they would commit to putting in 2 hours of work on whatever project we threw their way. So far that plan has been a huge success, and we've gotten a remarkable amount done this week, both in preparing the Telemaster for its next test flight, and also in the fabrication of our Competition UAV and Competition Rocket. | Here's a picture of Zach shaping the Carbon Fiber fins for the rocket, using a belt sander to trim them down to size.  Here Erin is cutting another fin down to size.  And, at last, the fins mounted to the 98mm motor tube.  Here Tyler is cutting the spar for the wing for our Competition UAV.  Carroll is slotting the wing to accept the spar.  Now, installing the spar into the slotted wing-halves.  And, the finished wing, ready to be sanded and fiberglassed.  Lastly, I got the gimbal for the Reconnaissance camera assembled and installed into the bottom of the Telemaster. Matt Heller helped me modify the servos to travel a full 180* (normally servos only travel 60* or so out of the box). Tomorrow we'll be attaching the reconnaissance camera.  I also went ahead and bumped back some more of the news back to the Old News page. On an unrelated note, Kyser has been working furiously on our AIAA paper, which is due on Friday and which we'll be presenting in early April a few weeks before the competition launch. Just to make sure everyone is well represented on the website, I snapped a shot of him.  And, just for giggles, here's Kyser in cognito as Chief Ground Testing Engineer Kyser Miree, geared up in his beloved jump suit, 1980's safety glasses, and work gloves.  In summary, we've got the Telemaster just about set up for testing all the electronics except the custom circuitry for the accelerometers and roll rate sensors. The wing for the competition UAV is built, as are the V-Tails, and a new fuselage is being laid up tomorrow. The Tail Section of the rocket is mostly built, as is the custom 6'-tall payload tube. Between now and Saturday March 14th, we'll be testing all the electronics in the Telemaster, then flight testing the Competition UAV, and then installing all the electronics into the Competition UAV. Finally, tentatively scheduled for March 14th, we'll have a full-scale test launch with just about every single system on board. Should be a very interesting couple of weeks. Stay tuned.
Monday, February 23th | Will Runge
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On Saturday, we went to the Adventure Science Center and presented our project to children and their parents. The Adventure Science Center is a local interactive science museum/exhibit where kids can go to learn about some of the cool applications of science and get their hands dirty in some classic science experiments. From 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM we stood around a poster, last year's Competition Rocket, our Proof of Concept UAV, and some laptops. We brought some guides for making different kinds of paper airplanes for a fun distraction, as well as Realflight G3.5 to teach kids how to fly R/C airplanes. Over the course of the day, we talked to several hundred children from infants on up to teenagers. Below are a few pictures from that exciting event. | A crowded display.  Making paper airplanes and flying R/C airplanes in the simulator.  Here's a shot of me teaching a young girl how to fly R/C airplanes in our simulator.  The Presenters. From Left to Right, it's Tyler Lamb, Will Runge, Thomas Bowden, and Matt Heller.  Standing around our display towards the end of the day.  We also made the news once again. The Vanderbilt School of Engineering's website is carrying an article about the USLI and describes our project in brief. The article is called Aerospace Club Among 20 Teams Picked By NASA for April 'Launch Initiative.'. It's an article about the USLI competition, with quotes from some press people over at NASA-Marshall as well as a description of the project from our very own Dr. A.V. Anilkumar. Below is a preview of that article:  That about sums up what we did over the weekend. I'm hoping that by mid-week we'll have our Wifi connection working, as well as the serial interface of the Reconnaissance camera to the SBC. Hopefully before people start leaving for spring break we'll be flying, collecting high-res images of the ground, and have instantaneous GPS location and other info going across the wifi connection.
Friday, February 20th | Will Runge
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Today we flight-tested our senior Telemaster with some of the electronics on board. We had hoped to get the Wifi, GPS, and Forward-Facing Camera all working in time for the test, and to verify a strong signal between our ground station router and the 802.11g tx/rx onboard the UAV, but unfortunately, despite working all through the night, Matt was unable to get the UAV's wifi device to play nice with the Debian Linux on the Single Board computer. With Ben Chociej's help, we were able to get the GPS for the UAV working, but without the wifi connection there was no way to transmit the data in realtime. As such, we flew the Telemaster with the SBC recording location data from the GPS, and with the forward facing camera transmitting data down to the grond, but no wifi uplink. | Regardless, though, the flight testing was a huge success. First of all, there were concerns about whether the Telemaster, which is in the stock configuration except for the addition of a beefed-up motor and battery (And of course the electronics payload) would be up to the task of carrying the electronics, which at this this time weigh in at about 1.5 lbs for the stuff that was actually onboard the airplane today. We also were able to transmit the 550-line video feed from our KX-191 on 900 MHz down to the ground for viewing and recording, and we were pretty pleased with that system working despite the fact that we forgot to turn the onboard antenna vertical prior to flight. Below are a few pictures from this morning. Hooking up the batteries and servo leads to get ready for flight.  Randy, our ace test pilot, checks the throw and clearance on our control surfaces prior to the maiden flight of our Telemaster.  Posing for a quick shot prior to the maiden flight. From left to right, it's Thomas Bowden, Thomas Carroll, Will Runge [me!], Matt Heller, and Tyler Lamb.  Lining up for the first takeoff.  Airborne!  Turning onto the Downwind leg.  Turning onto the Final Approach.  A low pass by the cameraman.  Another low pass.  Coming around for landing. We had two successful flights, totalling about 30 minutes of flight testing. Our motor battery burned through it's charge a bit faster than we'd anticipated - probably the Electric Speed Controller's cutoff is pretty conservative right now - and after that we were on our way. I was able to fly the plane briefly, and it was handling great - light, nimble, and maneuverable despite the extra load. With any luck we'll be back out there in a week with Wifi and our Reconnaissance camera on board. We have the video feed from the forward-facing camera recorded on our club laptop, and also the video from the ground of most of the flight, so tonight or tomorrow I'm going to get that video tidied up and uploaded for your viewing pleasure. And you can look forward to more flight testing research data in about a week, hopefully. Another exciting development in the lab today was the arrival of the tripod for our ground station antennas. At the top is the 1.2 GHz, 8dbi patch antenna for the analog video feed from our Reconnaissance camera. The grid is a 24 dBi antenna for the 2.4 GHz 802.11g wifi uplink to the aircraft. And, on bottom is the 900 MHz, 9dBi antenna for the feed from the forward-facing camera.  OK, that's it for now. Stay tuned!
Thursday, February 19th | Will Runge
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Well, a bunch of people came by the lab this afternoon after the meeting, so I figured I'd talk about what's going on and show off some pictures. Ben Chociej, one of our new Computer Engineers, is working with our GPS, and he claims he'll have it ready for our flight-testing of the telemaster tomorrow. Thomas Carroll helped with a few of the last minor details on the Telemaster. Tyler put together our antennas for tomorrow on a mast to be aimed at the plane in flight. Bowden laid up one of the V-Tails in carbon fiber, and finished the surface preparation on our UAV Wind Tunnel Model. | This is the 1/6th scale model of our Proof of Concept UAV.  Here's a shot of Ben Chociej working on some crazy computer stuff.  And here's one of Bowden laying up a Carbon Fiber V-Tail for our Competition UAV.  Tomorrow morning we're getting up bright and early to fly the Telemaster, complete with the Single Board computer, the Wifi uplink, the GPS transmitter onboard, and the forward-facing camera and its 900 MHz transmitter. In total there will be 3 links between the ground station and the Telemaster; the 72 MHz R/c control channel, the Wifi data-gathering channel, and the 900 MHz analog video transmitter. I also added some more stuff to the Documentation section of the Wiki. We're thinking that next year the team may participate in the AUVSI UAV competition, so I tracked down all the competition papers from the last several years to serve as a reference and starting point for future members of the Vanderbilt Aerospace Club. I also added a counter underneath our "Project Summary," counting down to the Competition Launch. With any luck, we'll have our Competition Rocket and Competition UAV ready for launch before we leave for spring break, in about a week. It is going to be a busy week. Stay tuned!
Thursday, February 19th | Will Runge
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Lots of stuff is getting done in the lab. Yesterday, we had almost the entire team up there at one time or another. Bowden cut out the rocket fins from the carbon fiber which was laid up previously. Kyser laid up the fuselage for our Competition UAV. Tyler shaped a wing. I worked on some of the ground station equipment, piecing together various power sources and connectors required to make all of that work. Carroll spent some time working with the electric speed cotnroller (ESC) for our Telemaster, getting that mounted and installed tidily, and also working some with the 500mW wifi tx/rx onboard the UAV. Tomorrow afternoon we're going to take the wifi system out and test the range of that, time permitting. At Dr. Anilkumar's urging, we have decided to flight test the Telemaster on Friday, so we'll be very busy getting as many different systems set up for testing as possible. | Bowden cutting out fins from the Carbon Fiber we laid up a week or so back.  Tyler shaping some blue foam to make a wing.  Kyser laying up the Carbon Fiber fuselage for our Competition UAV.  We also managed to recruit 3 junior Computer Engineers: Ben Chociej, Javier Roldan-Cora, and Haziq Mazlan. They'll be helping Matt Heller with some of the electronics this year, and hopefully taking on the electronics/software aspect of this project next year as a senior design project. We're already putting them to work. Ben worked some with a USB GPS device, and was able to pull raw NMEA location and satellite lock data off of that. With any luck, he says he'll be able to get that set up on the Single Board Computer, so that when we go to flight test the Telemaster we can also track it in realtime through a Google Earth-esque program while monitoring the forward-facing camera. So that should be exciting. We're lined up to visit the Adventure Science Center here in Nashville on Saturday, so we're getting ready for that too. We're planning on taking our Proof of Concept UAV, our rocket, and a computer to run Realflight G3.5 R/C trainer for the kids to fool around with. Hopefully we'll take out the Telemaster on Friday, with the GPS, Wifi, and NAVCAM systems to test. And then if the components come in on time, a week from Friday we should be ready for flight testing with the Reconnaissance Camera, and all the aforementioned systems. So, the electronics systems are at last well on their way to functionality. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, February 18th | Will Runge
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We spent a lot of time over the last few days prepping our Telemaster for flight at Peeler Park today, but unfortunately it is very windy. We're going to hold off, probably until next Wednesday, to fly the plane and its payload. One advantage here is that this will permit us more time to install the payload systems into the plane, making this first test flight more useful in determining that everything works. | As of right now, the Telemaster is equipped with the Single Board Computer (and its battery, and voltage regulator), as well as the Wifi transmitter, and the Forward-Facing Camera (NAVCAM), with its gimbal and transmitter. Hopefully before next wednesday we'll be able to install our Reconnaissance camera on its gimbal, with the 1.2 GHz transmitter for that system, and possibly the GPS. In the meantime, I figured I'd at least upload a few pictures to show everyone what we've been working on. I went ahead and made some labels so that it's not just an incoherent wiring mess. A closeup of the Forward-Facing Camera (NAVCAM).  The telemaster, and its external antennas.  A look into the payload bay.  Everything labeled.  Anyway, that's it for now. Spring break is a week and a half away, and before then we're hoping to have the Competition Rocket completely built and assembled, and to have the Competition UAV entirely fabricated, with internal assemblies underway. Our test launch is scheduled to be the week after Spring Break. It's about to get interesting!
Thursday, February 12th | Will Runge
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We got a lot of fabrication work done yesterday, so I figured I'd go ahead and post some pictures and fill everyone in on what we've been up to. This morning, Tyler and I laid up the Carbon Fiber for 2 more fins, which brings our total up to 3, out of 4 that we need. As soon as we get the 4th one laid up and cut out, we can begin assembly of our competition rocket's tail section. We also made some major headway towards the construction of the molds for our UAV. Ben shaped and partially carbon fibered the nose cowl, and Kyser did the shaping for the tapered aft section of the fuselage. Hopefully we'll have the full fuselage carbon fibered and ready for internal assemblies by the end of the week. On that note, we're going to try to draw our entire airplane, down to every servo, screw, and internal component, so that we can try to place the CG using ProEngineer and also so that we can figure out the internal dimensions in 3 dimensions prior to actually having to build everything. Here are the pictures. | Here Tyler is laying up the carbon fiber fins for the competition rocket -  Ben's shaping the mold for the motor cowling out blue foam.  Ben Laying up the Carbon Fiber nose cowl.  Kyser Shaping the aft tapered section of the fuselage.  Ty Drawing up a servo in ProEngineer.  OK, well that's about it for now. Lots of exciting stuff going on, and over the next week or so we should have in all the off-the-shelf electronics to start fooling around with. Should make for a very interesting next few weeks. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, February 10th | Will Runge
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Not terribly much to report on today. Everyone's doing their part to help make this next airplane come together, and in the mean time Matt and I have been working with the electronics, ironing out what all we need, how it's going to interface together, and then ordering all the associated parts. As of right now we've ordered just about every off-the-shelf part we'll need - provided everything works as desired - and the big remaining task will be developing the custom circuitry and software, and then testing everything. In any case, putting together all the off-the-shelf equipment will be a big step in the right direction. I'd hoped to fly our Senior Telemaster tomorrow with some of the electronics onboard - especially the forward-facing camera and the SBC + Wifi - but unfortunately we're still waiting on a bunch of parts. With any luck we'll be flying the telemaster next Wednesday, and testing out the range of our 900 MHz video transmitter and our long-range wifi. | In the mean time, in the midst of doing all this research about the electronics, the various frequencies and communication that will be taking place, and ordering all the various parts, I've come to realize that this is all getting pretty complicated and convoluted. So, this afternoon I put together a really nice block diagram of all the airborne systems and the ground systems, which will be very useful in explaining the various systems as well as making a good piece for future reports and posters. The Flight Readiness Review is only 5 weeks away, after all. In any case, here's the block diagram.  As you can see, we're pretty much heart-set on the Aiptek A-HD+ mentioned in the previous post, and we've also changed our minds on some other hardware, namely the USB Wifi device and some of the antennas for the analog video receivers. This should be a pretty good roadmap of what is to come. Things that might change include the layout of the custom circuitry (e.g. how information travels within that subsystem), and also the strength of the antennas being used on the ground, pending our ground and flight testing of those signals. On the whole, though, this should be a very good representation of all the different components onboard our aircraft and on the ground. If you're wondering about the size of this thing, it was scaled to fit exactly on a landscape piece of paper, assuming no margins.
Sunday, February 8th | Will Runge
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Well, lots of progress on a number of fronts. First off, Matt spent some time working with our Fluke 568 Infrared Thermometer yesterday afternoon, and between the use of a USB Sniffer and some serious work in the command line, he had the IR thermometer communicating with the computer without using Fluke's proprietary software (which would bog down our 500 MHz flight computer if we could even make it run). So that's pretty exciting. If we get everything else working for Wednesday maybe we'll also take some temperature measurements. Here's a picture of Matt working feverishly to set up our flight computer. |  I also had a small revolution regarding our reconnaissance camera. There has been an ongoing dilemma regarding this device. Originally we wanted to transmit the high-res video as analog, but the problem there is that the radio data frequencies available to hobbyists and the general public (900 MHz, 1.3 GHz, 2.6 GHz, 5.8 GHz, among others) are not sufficiently high-bandwidth to send analog video in high resolution at any respectable framerate. Transmitting high-resolution video as an analog signal, we were looking at getting one frame every couple seconds, which just plain isn't good enough. Then we were thinking that we'd convert the analog video to digital on our 500 MHz computer, but it seemed like that would be too taxing on our system; the last thing we need is for our computer to be running too slow to process control inputs and cause the plane to crash. Finally, we were thinking about getting a digital-output camera (e.g. a USB webcam), but there were problems there too; again it might bog down the computer, and anyway most USB cameras are webcams, and they're not very high-resolution. I stumbled upon what seems like the perfect resolution to this problem, in light of our design requirements. As it turns out, many high-resolution HD camcorders can simultaneously record high-quality video to their flash memory while at the same time outputting a relatively low-resolution analog signal. One example popular in the r/c airplane-mounted-camera hobby world is the Aiptek A-HD+ camcorder. This device can record stunningly good-quality video, and output the analog video at the same time, with no delay. The application here is that, while in flight we can transmit the decent-quality analog video to be used in seeking targets and orienting the camera towards areas of interest, and then after the flight when the plane has landed, we can view the same video in High Definition. We're already using 900 MHz, 2.6 GHz, and 72 MHz, for the forward-facing camera, the wifi uplink, and the standby controller, respectively, so we may be able to transmit the video from this camera on 1.3 GHz or perhaps on 5.8 GHz. More on that later. Here are a few pictures of the camera itself: 
 Finally, I came upon what seems to be the perfect gimbal setup for our high-res camera and IR thermometer. Shopping through some robotics website, I came upon a gimbal ideal for cameras up to 2 lbs, which you can use any standard-size servo in, and which gives great range of motion and plenty of mounting surface for the camera and other hardware. It is the ServoCity SPT200 Pan and Tilt system: 
 The one other item of interest is that I bumped back all the news from Fall 2007 to a separate page, because this page was getting to be so large that loading it all at once was getting to be a real problem for some of our viewers on slower connections. If you want to read news from last semester, follow this link: All Old News Posts OK, that's it for now. We've got a lot of electronics stuff on the way, and with any luck it'll get here next week in time for us to fly the telemaster with a useful electronics payload. Stay tuned!
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