As we collected flying robot Bashny.Net

What we wanted
We have at the Faculty of innovation and high technology MIPT this type steep course - an innovative workshop. In brief - of third-year students are recruited teams who are trying to do something real, it is desirable to somehow associated with programming and the actual modern technology. That's what we wanted to achieve. Our project - to make a plane (yes, not now fashionable quadrocopter!) Who will be able to fly up / sit down in the automatic mode, fly over the points GPS, and shoot anything that sees the built-in camera. FPV we also wanted, but later.

Remarque
Post rather than scientific, technical, and discharge from the Kul-story, which had a lot of failures, but was a no success. So everyone who wants to laugh and learn what have we done, ask a Habr cat.





Who we
Our team consisted of five students third-year, and was more like a zoo:
two plyusovika, this ios-developer, mathematician, and a girl, is bound to keep us together and make something to do.

Plus worked with us three guys from ABBYY, because our project was from this company.

As we first wanted to do it all
The plan was simple - to buy hobbyking just a plane in complete RTF (ready to fly), pull out of a radio, insert there arduinku or perhaps fee on AWP from a broken smartphone, put back the firmware (in the case of AWP - ROS - robot operating system, Arduinka - something of ardupilot, megapirat, multi-wii or any fork it all). After that we get what we wanted, quietly close the course, and further the advancement of all this business - fasten the suspension chamber, thereby making control suspension, trying to come up with some other pieces and add them. What of it? Ah ... Well, at least something.

Purchase accessories
Initially we ordered two copies of the popular second-Bixler enough - hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__32541__Hobbyking_Bixler_2_EPO_1500_KIT_.html,
Brains were selected these - www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__26588__MultiWii_PRO_Flight_Controller_w_MTK_GPS_Module.html

Booked all this, we have to wait Honest Russian Post.
Here at once and leave a review about HC - Chinese is not enough that the purchase decorations for three days, so still and tracking number is not given, and get it from them and did not work. As a result, the package we booked in mid-March, got it on the Victory Day, May 9 ... The semester has ended already.
In late April, we realized that to pull ahead and wait for the mythical parcel can not, and we must do something.
In Russia, the plane was bought, the most robust (for the first flight), which could drag our fee and, in the future, the camera.

That photo of the aircraft:

ON
After much debate and attempts to collect something sensible, we stopped at the Ardupilot, which in addition to being able to cool a lot of things out of the box, so also there is a very cool thing - APM Mission Planner, which allows you to lay a charge of the mission directly from a convenient kuei (which, as we thought, like users) + also have the opportunity to ask the mission with your tablet / phone, you need a USB OTG support for setting the mission, and a set of telemetry on a plane to go to monitor its status or change the target. < br />
The first assembly
By bringing this very red plane, we are very long and hard to set up the PIDs, because he is not very popular, looked more like a cottage industry, and the normal config ready for it, we have not found. Just lay the firmware requires 321 parameters that determine how the firmware will control iron. Nothing good came out of it, fly up in the automatic mode, we could not.

The new aircraft
Then came May 9 and we come upon happiness - our planes arrived. Came true in a completely disassembled, so we spent the evening at their complete assembly.







First flight
Gathering the plane we went flying. First, of course, nothing happened - the plane would not automatically go on a mission, do not operate the engine after starting with the hands. Then we dug into the configuration and settings - it turned out that when the power went out on a default payment to the wrong mode - waiting for connection to the PC, rather than trying to start execution of the mission.

After that was the funniest and saddest moment of our flights. Late in the evening, after the next startup, the aircraft flew. Side wind blew, he tried to stabilize, and ... turned ... We have mixed polarity serv responsible for ailerons ... However, the flight did not stop - 20 meters through the plane got belly up to the landing area, and yes, he began to sit down. Given that the polarity of the elevator we were not mistaken, the plane had gone straight up, and caught on the branch of a tree.

Photo report of the day -







As you can see, we have strengthened the nose and wings of the aircraft with electrical tape and mounting tape - and for good reason. After all accidents and falls, the plane flew and stood firm, and the time you spent somewhere in the 5-10 minutes to cook it for the next launch.

However, the first day of the flight ended in nothing - it was dark, and the summer we have not learned.

The second flight day we did not bring anything useful - try to fly 2 hours, our plane was hanging on a high birch, and removed it from there brave local archers - Tolkienists. Repairs took all night.



Success
Prior to the presentation of our project was only 2.5 hours on the clock it was 6 am, and we went to try to fly.
The first flight was about to become the latest:



We thought that this would be the only photo slide presentation of our project.
It was found during startup stepped JPI - jumper on the board, which determines where food takes charge - from ESC airplane or from USB.

Video failure:



However, we fix it, and we waited for a partial, but success.



As you can see, after starting with hands on automatic mode, the plane took off turnovers (because management was transferred to the board), ducked down, then lay down on the course, came to the landing area and more or less gently sat down. Unfortunately, the operator was not lucky, and we have removed it crooked. However, we see how the plane is heading and stabilized.
After that fly again we have not been able to - JPI bridge rested on the nozzle and constantly crashes, and time is running out.

In the near future plans to attach the camera and fly over large areas, but this is a topic for a future post.

If someone that is interested, ready to respond to a PM / comment / another post.

p.s. And that's how we ended up in a tree:



Source: habrahabr.ru/post/224963/