dec 29

Looks like I've not done the work again. Now, the main priority is to integrate a PID loop with the IMU bluetooth info and speed control of the motors. I have ten hours to do this. I can't believe that I sort of pissed off the guys. I wanted us to go to college. It gives me the spurs to work tonight - that we have to get something working tomorrow. It's been two days of no work and it shows. I felt bad that  Vinod called me and sort of told me that he was really sick. But, we are meeting tomorrow. What are the things we are going to do tomorrow?

Finish the loop control of the motors. This might even be the final project. I know that I can write the code, but LVR is the only one who can make the practical part of it work. IT CAN BE DONE. I believe in us. I believe because ma'am trusts us to do this. And, she has trusted us above all else.

Other long term problems to solve.

1. dynamics of penta

2. inertial tensor matrix of penta== states of the state equation.

3. hardware- the battery charger- this is one whole deal by itself

4. http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__22423__apc_style_propeller_6x4_2pc_.html

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=23033

Look at both these pages, some guys have been waiting since november for the delivery of these products. Is it possible for us to get these propellers from anywhere in India?

5. I've done two more sub programs of the simulation.

 I need to do around 6 more, but I need to understand alot more of the stuff.

6. I should finish the arduino code at least by today, but, when I am looking at it today, after I do write the PID loop then, the controlled value can be translated to the motor velocity but even that needs alot more understanding of the dynamics, which will take some time.

I think we should go to college, because, otherwise, you live in a false fantasy world, anyway, I love SSN. Because ma'am gave us this great opportunity to work on this pentacopter.

Major doubt 4: to be CLkwise or AntiCLKwise

We have three clockwise rotors and two anticlockwise rotors. My doubt is The anticlockwise rotors push the ground, the clockwise rotors do the opposite. From the previous line, I see how confused I actually am.

http://robots.dacloughb.com/project-2/esc-calibration-programming/ this is a nice site of the university of Victoria, where they put together a quad in the mechatronics lab.

Part of the reasoning in why we are using the ARDUINO board is the ardupilot 2.6 uses an AT2560 mega to process IMU data. Interesting. pointed out by LVR. Anyway, it is possible to demonstrate hover. This is a sure thing that will get done by this monday. Have to place an order for the propellers. LVR told me that too.
I just checked it. No. the ARDUINOMEGA2560 configuration is used to program the APM in ARDUINO software. But, still is worth a shot. 

Major doubt 3

The values that we need to control are x, y, altitude(z), phi, theta, psi. The good news. Thanks to LVR's homecoming, we got the bluetooth transmission of the gyro data going. So, we have phi, theta and psi. As for altitude, it looks like we're putting up an ultrasonic sensor at the center of the setup.

There is a major problem here. Our Ultrasonic sensors are too sensitive to noise i.e. it's better to understand it from here- there are five rotors, as compared to four in a quadcopter.

But, that isn't the big doubt. Ok, I was thinking, 
1.how do we measure the X and Y coordinates of the device?

THE BIG PIC== HOW DO THE DYNAMICS OF THE PENTACOPTER WORK?
In a quad this is the case-

Major doubt 2

The quadcopter has symmetry in three axes. So, the only quantities we need in the inertial tensor matrix are Ixx,Iyy and Izz. In the pentacopter, there is no symmetry in the x and y axes.This means that Ixy, Ixz, Iyx, Iyz, Izx, Izy all exist. 

for a quadrotor the following is what we would normally deal with.

Here, in the I3*3 matrix instead of having just three components, we have all 9, which means more computational time. Not the best words.

2. The fact is we gave unequal PWMs to each motor(on arduino) which means something is wrong with our center of mass not being at the center of gravity? Mass not equally distributed? How do you make sure it is equally distributed?
What we did- equal measurements two hard bases to keep the battery in between, will post the photo on 30th December.

Major doubt 1

there are four pins on the charger. 

never thought of it before. This is a 3 cell charger.

the charger wire is ok. There's no problem on this side.

 there are five wires on the battery.

We don't know whether you can charge the battery with the four pin charger in any way. There are five wires here. red, green,black white,yellow. Is it possible? Hopefully.

Turnigy 5000mAh 4S1P 14.8v 20C hardcase pack this is the official name of the battery as given in the bill.

http://scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/lipo.html In this website I ofund out how the interconnections are for the battery. This is helpful.

On the left most end, you have the real positive terminal of the battery, on the right most end you have the negative terminal. So, technically, if we can provide a 14.8V source to the leftmost such battery, then we can use the same battery charger to charge the other 3 cells.

Today and tomorrow no work. (over saturday and sunday)
Plans:
1. Finish video lecture of three + three videos of UCF CRCV and SLAM stachniss.this is not done either. There is not any major work being done. 
2. Finish the simulation. this is not done. 
3. Finish the PID loops and kalman filter in arduino. this is not done either
4. Use openCV for edge detection. Write programs for at least 10 of the concepts mentioned there.this was not done

I am and should be ashamed of myself. I slept from 2 to 6 again, and that has really put off any chance of me doing all these great things that can actually contribute to me becoming more proficient technically.

dec 27

L.V. spoke, wanted to derive state equations.
I am to finish the simulation.
Nithin is to finish three PID loops in ARDUINO.

The long term decision is to use the ARDUINO2560.

dec 26th

LV Renga is an amazing guy. Because he finds solutions. As soon as he came down, he was right into it. The reason why even the simplest of compass programs given on the amarino website wasn't working on the arduino was because we'd used the analog TX RX pins. Nithin and me were thinking, OK something is wrong in the code, how can we change the code. But, Lv thought something was wrong with what we'd done. So, what he did was just put the TX RX wires into the TX0 RX0 terminals. And, that was what we did constructively today.

Last night, got the pentacopter model worked out.




From now on, my only job is to get one thing done at a time- the simulation will be worked on again and again.QUANTIFY
1. argument 1. The guys want to do adaptive thresholding to get stable hovering. I say use PID loop. why?
1.a. the kk multicopter board used a PI loop for stability.
1.b. The ton of info that we have 'already seen' collectively does not point to using adaptive thresholds for stabilization.
1.c. why try to reinvent the wheel, this is simple, sounds simple, is probably going to give a lot more problems that we can't deal with, there is no blog info, which is pretty much what we've been living on
2. argument on the side of adaptive thresholding.
2.a. no need to use matrices i.e. matrices are tough. kalman filters are much worse.
2.b. we have two months. not much time that. PRACTICALITY.

I have to quit watching these videos for SLAM, UCF CRCV because I need to finish the simulation by the new year.
 

dec24

I will download the android SDK for the android course in college, and the courser videos, the other things on the laptop etc. Then, can work on the android thing.
Must probably work on the android to arduino thing, understanding the code. The code has been written for a stepper motor. We need to change how it works for a servo. So how do we do that?- Nithin.
FIrst we need to get data from the thing.
 

dec 10th

First two little blocks
1. Moment of inertia matrix can't be found just like in the intech paper.
2. The pairing of the Bluetooth module occurs, Nothing else goes on.
3. Internet problem in the lab.

My eyesight problem was very bad. Woke up on  11th was advised full bed rest for 11th and 12th. Then ,realized that I have the arrear exams to clear. Ok. If I still went to college and screwed up both the eyesight and the exams, it won't work out to advantage. Gave nithin the keys. I will do well in the exams on 18th and 21st and then resume work on the penta-copter. I did not foresee this problem. Very stupid of me. Otherwise would have worked till 14th. Means I will have much more catching up to do.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-07-dynamics-fall-2009/lecture-notes/MIT16_07F09_Lec26.pdf
http://techhouse.brown.edu/~dmorris/projects/tutorials/inertia.tensor.summary.pdf
explains about the inertial tensor matrix. today vinod came. Nithin me also there. The bluetooth module needs to be configured or the bluetooth module is not working? It pairs. So, our assumption is it should work. Again, the only way to really make sure things are ok on the ANDROID and the ARDUINO side of things is toread the thesis make notes etc etc.

12th dec

Eye problem. Woke up at 6 couldn't see clearly, eyes watering continuously. Slept for 15 minutes same problem. Then with drops slept for an hour. Still same problem. Went to the doctor, and, found I had an allergy cum infection etc etc So, didn't go to coll and give keys to Nithin. I have to go on thirteenth. The VLSI exam is on 18th and the M&I is on 21st. Help me Shri amma Bhagwan.

Dec 9th

http://code.google.com/p/amarino/downloads/detail?name=SensorGraph_02.zip must work the problem there was this. We should've done this-

int sensor=A5 //pin name for Bluetooth TX to the ARDUINO RX
in the loop
void loop()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
}

 Never realized that this was to send the data value from arduino to android. Sry.
Tomorrow, am writing and understanding the code of the amarino app from the thesis for six hours 6:30 to 12:30. By 1:00 will leave for home. By 3:30 will start unit 3.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/amarino-toolkit/sTcbYcKSHG0

to configure your bt module you have to connect rx to rx and tx to tx, then you can use the serial monitor to turn your bt into command mode ($$$).

in normal operation mode pins must be rx to tx and tx to rx.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Modify-The-HC-05-Bluetooth-Module-Defaults-Using-A/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-2-Way-Bluetooth-Connection-Between-Arduino-a/

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/amarino-toolkit/sTcbYcKSHG0 

http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/tl_files/doc/at/abraxas/amarino/Amarino.html

Dec. 9th

Have started work on matlab simulation. Using keyword patch to generate five circles that act as wings of our Penta- Copter.  Also working on doing the re exams. So will be a bit long. Will go to college tomorrow. Told Nithin that we needed multilead wires. Nithin understood that it was just normal house copper wire late at night. My fault. Anyway tomorrow shd work out ok.

Dec 8th

http://www.zilogic.com/contact.html this place can help with the ARM kit to work. The cost of the course is ridiculous at 12500Rs. I just need to find out if the place can make our kit work.

http://www.zilogic.com/training.html#join course in the same place

http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc6112.pdf eval board user guide

http://www.atmel.in/Images/doc6295.pdf atmel ARM controller user guide

http://www.atmel.in/applications/Smart_Energy/electricity_meters/default.aspx egs of applns using the board

http://www.atmel.in/tools/SAM7SE-EK.aspx software package for the board

Went to ECE-B gettogether for PT'S and Shiwani's B'day. Started at 12:05 and really screwed up as in drove for 1 and a half hours on a half hour road. To a place called Triana on Lloyd's road. Discovered the difference between RK salai, Lloyd's road, G.N. Chetty road, Gemini flyover, went to marina. Was in a state of constant tension. Luckily, thankfully, I had friends like Santosh who told me to wait at the Indian Bank on the Music academy junction and guided me to the place(I was about to leave.)

Anyway, what that meant was that a day was not spent on the project. When I returned home at 7:15 I realized that we needed multilead wire to solder on to the Bluetooth module. So, there wasn't much use in going to college. Then, another problem

 

Why weren't we able to get the data transferred from our mobile to the ARDUINO2560. This can be understood by understanding what variable we want to display on the serial monitor.

 

 

 

Dec 7th

Today, did a host of things. The things that we did were the following i.e. me and Nithin. This guy Vinod chose not to come. Did not tell me why.
Today was weird. I had a bath and was about to start when I didn't realize where I left the penta room keys. I was searching for ten minutes. One of the most frantic searches that. Then, I realized that I really needed to go to college. This was at 6 42. Then, I ran to the bus stop. Finally, I realized that the bus had left. Then, I came back home, went about a frantic search for the key. I emptied the table. and found it wasn't there. I had serious issues. I was trusted with the key. And then, I... this really happened... I found the key in my wallet. So, it was safe. And, I'd missed the bus. And, there was a missed call from Nithin. The guy reached college at 8. And, then I started for college.  In the middle of when I was driving, he phoned and told me that we might need an SD/Micro card. I was halfway through to college. Luckily, we didn't need it. Drove to it. I found out the cell phone I was given was an S-6312. Because there was no charge on the cellphone for the penta, used mine. It turned out to work. I took home the AT91 board to work, and Nithin wanted to put the software, AMARINO app on the penta cell phone, but he didn't use his own id and made me use mine. This was not strange.
Over in college the following was done.
3. Meanwhile, make sure that the HC-05 module works. i.e. see about what this guy talked about- Suriyanath. He was the guy who said that you could program the HC-05.
4. See that the HC-05 module works with the given mobile phone.
 5. Install all the stuff required for the AMARINO app to work. i.e. just make it work. see if I am able to get the readings at the end of it.

7. solder the Bluetooth module onto the arduino board. THIS did not work out too well. We, Nithin and me tried soldering the thing together. It did not work. The wire kept falling off. It was, I thought that it was because of the use of the wire i.e. it was thicker?? than the stuff on instructables.com.

I got the AT91SAM7S board from Ma'am. The amarino app etc. was installed on my cell. Not on the pentacopter Cellphone. Nithin gave me the sheath for the solder rod. The guy is wow!!.

1. Make the motion model of the pentacopter. This will be done on Monday. Not after following Andrew Gibiansky's blog. But the intech paper that I found.
 2.  Write the motion model of the pentacopter in C.
1,2.a. is derive the moment of inertia of the pentacopter.
1,2.b. is find out the mass of the individual things.
1,2.c. is find out whether the weight measurement machine is still there.
1,2.d follow the steps given in the intech textbook. See. how things work.

9.  See if the AT91SAM7S works on the software available online at home. i.e. ask ma'am's permission to get the at91 board home.
This and CT's lectures will be done today. At home. Apart from that, am also writing the sops and finishing the college applications.

Set of things to do.
Another thing that I have done is get the HC Verma Concept of Physics-1 from L.V.Renga.  1,2.a. should be solved.  Should start on two things today.
1. Watch CT's lectures again. Make notes again.
2. Get AT91SAM7S to work.
Spoke to Suryanath and found that you need to use multilead wire to get the Bluetooth module RX,TX, VCC and GND wires soldered.
3. Solder the wires onto Bluetooth module.
4.  Write the motion model of the pentacopter in C.
 

plan for 7th december

It's the sixth today. Am going to review on all the goals that I have set. Right now, spoke to nithin, he said he 'might try' to get the sheath to solder as mentioned on the blog on as mentioned on November 3rd. Will upload a pic once he brings it. or not. It's 7 0' Closk now. It might not be possible for him to go at night. What are the long term goals.
Well, I started on the matlab implementation of a model. Will hopefully finish it tonight.
1. Make the motion model of the pentacopter. This will be done tomorrow after following Andrew Gibiansky's blog.
2.  Write the motion model of the pentacopter in C.
3. Meanwhile, make sure that the HC-05 module works. i.e. see about what this guy talked about- Suriyanath. He was the guy who said that you could program the HC-05.
4. See that the HC-06 module works with the given mobile phone.
5. Install all the stuff required for the AMARINO app to work. i.e. just make it work. see if I am able to get the readings at the end of it.
6. See and document what I understand from the Cyril Stachnissji's lectures. i.e. what is the next step from there?
7. solder the Bluetooth module onto the arduino board.
8. Compute something like this.
 Initial percentage fo the battery=100%
Final percentage of the battery =x%
((100-x)/100)(1/time taken)= discharge rate of the cell battery while having Bluetooth link with the penta.
9.  See if the AT91SAM7S works on the software available online at home. i.e. ask ma'am's permission to get the at91 board home.
10. Start implementing the control loops for each part in C.


Seriously, if any of you guys are reading this, a like would be appreciated!

Phoned Nithin, he said he got the solder sheath, which means I have to pack the soldering rods in the bag. Both. Done.

software and hardware cycle

An adaptation of what is expected of me. What I and Dr. Prita ma'am expects of me. To implement this cycle-

This is what we are supposed to do.

This is what I understood from the three videos of Cyril Stachniss

 

 

28th November 2013

http://anduinocopter.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/motors-machining-and-the-sil/.
On a cursory glance, these people use USB transfer of data between the ARDUINO and the ANDROID devices.

25th November 2-13

The actual plan is that I start working real. I start working really from the 6th to the 21st of this month. I should actually plan this well. Everything that I experience today is the result of things that I have done in the past. I am valuable. I have complete faith and trust in anything that I put my mind to . All of my needs are met. I am able to give up blaming because it is a waste of energy. What are the things that have to be done? I ask all my friends to post what has to be done. Accountability is responsibility.
1. See that the AT91SAM7S kit works.
2. See that the other kit works.
3. Make the motion model.
4. Write the motion model in C.
5. Write a kalman filter, an implementation of the bayes filter, with the motion model in C.
6. Learn to simulate the pentacopter control in MATLAB. i.e. learn to use S.I.L.
7. Learn to simulate the pentacopter control in N.I.Labview. i.e. learn to use S.I.L. again!! create penta model
8. Study how cool dude krish makes the stuff work on the ATOM kit from intech.
http://sal.aalto.fi/publications/pdf-files/eluu11.pdf an interesting kinematic model for a quadcopter as mentioned inhttp://aeroquad.com/showthread.php?4927-Mathematical-Model-of-a-Quad-Copter
http://andrew.gibiansky.com/blog/physics/quadcopter-dynamics/ Mr. Gibiansky's blog is outstanding.
 I would love to make a website for myself like Mr. Gibiansky. That is a long term goal or can it be short term?

Whirlwind boss

It's been a whirlwind, these past few days. Anyway, this is what I've learnt. There is this really cool course by Cyril Stachniss, on youtube. I thank god that Cyril was created on earth. He is a god himself. He has uploaded the coolest 'real' course on SLAM. Can you believe it? on SLAM. That's just the title of the course. And, this is what I've gathered. The Kalman filter is a version of the Bayes filter, which relies on the Markov assumption(it makes so much more sense on video), and uses Gaussian functions for parameters. We need a sensor model which serves as our corrector part of the bayes equation. We need a motion model that fits into the predictor part of our kalman filter. The motion model itself consists of two parts- the kinematic model which consists of speed and velocities and the dynamical model which deals with the forces and torques.
http://www.intechopen.com/books/motion-control/intelligent-flight-control-of-an-autonomous-quadrotor
The following link gives us an idea of the motion modeling for a quadcopter, should have no trouble executing whatever it requires and says as my first glance of the material says that we just need some 'scale'ing of the weight and the lengths, get the inertial matrix then, it looks like everything goes smoothly from there. I guess. I will go to college tomorrow and check abt the AT91SAM7S? That's really a question I have to ask myself. I'll be forsaking a whole day that I can possibly have to myself. But, longterm, I really want to do this.
Right now, have listened to a dialogue from a tamil film in the back ground, while I'm watching Cyril Stachniss's third video that introduces the idea of motion modeling, Bayes filter etc.. It goes like this.
There's an old, respectable dude wearing headphones who says out loud, that women enter 'his' mall to get beauty tips from 'his son'. AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH#*&(*%#*(*#&(%*&(#! That's really got something off my mind now. Ok. Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Shan's place

 Today was a really cool day. Prasanna and I studied our way which consisted of blasting through this really weird local author textbook. It wasn’t great. In fact, it really didn’t make sense. A couple of things that I decided on thanks to Shan and co were this.On the thirteenth of this month, I will go to UNIQ technologies and ask them about the training . After that, I will go to Impel consultancy and get the job done by the thirtieth of this month.I started using the local author after the guys talked about how Theodore S. Rappaport’s textbook was condensed by the local author. This really didn’t make sense. I liked Andreas Molisch’s work because it read like a story. Things there made sense. Thankfully, my stupidity gave way to something right. I now am using the local author. I completed half of the second unit and the third unit, apart from a bit of the fourth unit  properly. I am a little disoriented.I went there at 10 O’ Clock in the morning to Shanmugam’s house. I forgot to phone and found myself phoning him at the doorstep. Awkward. Thankfully, the cool guy that Shan is, is so amazing and cool and helpful. He allowed me inside and we looked around sops for some time. After some time, he phoned Vaishnavi and Sabareesh and talked to them about how they were writing these exams. Then, I realized that Molisch though light years more readable was not the way to go if I wanted to pass these exams. Today was a great day. Today was a great day. Today was the first great day in a very long time. However amped up I was, I ended up sleeping by 9:00 at night and waking up at 7:00 this morning. Everyone is worked up about the examinations. That is understandable. Well, now is the time to really work things out and really well at that. I plan to start by 9:40 today and not eat until I finish the units 4 and 5 thoroughly by 5:00 today. I have a limit, so I know that this is my goal for sure. Then I want to write and practice the whole of the 2nd unit by tomorrow morning at 4:00.

 

Have started studying for my wireless communications examination. It is like the coolest subject ever. I just hope that I get some decent scores 'cos I've been studying like from the beginning of these hols from a foreign author- Dr. Andreas Molisch. Love the way he's written it. It makes sense. I'm starting with the fourth unit completing the topics of macro, micro diversity, the principle of diversity, doing the two sums in the textbook, then on to the third unit, covering all the shift keyings including Gaussian Minimum which I am and was afraid of. Prasanna the great said that he took just 53 minutes to finish the third unit. He's like a really awesome dude, always confident and no matter what you say, he always believes in himself and his ability to grow. I want to grow to acquire this side of him. After that, it's to the equalisers part of the fourth unit. Then, after finishing OFDM and CDMA thoroughly from the fifth unit, I will attempt to finish away with GSM. That way, I'll be leaving IS-95 and the third generation standards. Then, I hope to finish the propagation mechanisms part detailed in the second unit. By 10' O Clock in the morning, I will drive to Shan's(most kindhearted person who puts up with my weirdness) place. There, just going to do two important things.
1. Finish Shrinaath's sop( Shrinaath is really cool with a very different worldview. He gets on with people and just has an instant connect with anyone, when he chooses to. )(35 minutes)
2. Redo the third, fourth and fifth units thoroughly and finish with the theory of the second unit.
 I plan to reach home around 5:30, sleep till 6:00 and then write and practice the entire set of sums in the second unit from a local author. Then, starting again on the fifth unit. This is the sort of timetable I have. I should follow it. I've always known when to bear down. And, I really hope that I get the results this time around. I really need the results this time around.

Drone Aerospace Systems you su**!

I am for one, absolutely shocked. The price of an AT91sam7- evaluation kit is Rs.13,600. (281$ )Drone Aerospace refused to answer a single email that I posted to them. Now, I know why. Because everything we might require is already on http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/AT91SAM7SE-EK/AT91SAM7SE-EK-ND/1206696
D.A.S.(Drone Aerospace Systems Ltd.) appeared to state very clearly that they had fabricated the board themselves. So, we thought that well, these guys must have done the entire job on their own including the choosing of whatever they put on to the board(pardon my lack of big words I mean the placing of the chips, memory etc.) In fact, whenever I phoned Prasanna, I got no satisfactory reply. Hell! The guy seemed to act like he was no technical person.seemed to behave as if he had nothing else to do with it. Hell, they didn't even give us the user guide released by ATMEL.
http://www.atmel.in/Images/doc6241.pdf
I know this seems kind of weird, but a good idea might be to implement the software that I found on ATMEL's website. Because our board did not communicate with any of our laptops or the system at the Optics Lab.
http://www.atmel.in/tools/AT91SAMSOFTWAREPACKAGE.aspx
I should send a very strongly worded letter to Drone Aerospace Systems.
I would love to say at this point-
"We are going into the devil's nest. We are going to B'lore." But hey, what do the other guys have to say about it?

On the other hand, we have an I.M.U., G.P.S. module and SYS9400 board. Sriram anna has already implemented kalman filters to track real targets(realtime). So, can be expanded to visual servoing. It already runs Windows XP.

Am writing my SOR, SOP, PS,etc etc

Am presently writing my statement of research, statement of purpose, research interests, Curriculum Vitae, desired project, etc apart from studying for three exams I am not studying TQM,
have implemented a code that follows the steps detailed by Linus Helgesson. Things make so much more sense now. This is certainly not my Eureka moment but, this makes life so much more amazing. This diagram just look at it. All your problems will just fizzle out in no time. I am happy, truly happy. Linus, you've made this group a very happy group.

Found what I need::

Just found out some cool stuff. I don't know how to put captions here. I realized that you can get the soldering iron's solder point out.
I did it for both.
Now the thing is the microtip doesn't fit over the normal soldering iron. So, I need to get one sleeve that does the job. Then can solder wires on to the HC-05 Bluetooth module at college.

 

random stuff

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/373144B-01/lvcgenhelp/cgen_gen_code_from_vis/
says the steps required to make C generator work.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520586/the-clever-circuit-that-doubles-bandwidth/
talks about a novel technique developed by Kumu networks that promises to receive and transmit data on the same frequency by using a circuit that can predict the self interference precisely and generate a cancellation signal for the same, and by using the vast amplitude difference between the transmitted and received signals differentiates the two thus doubling the bandwidth of data available.

Today completed my statement of research for Univ of Arizona hope they really consider my application. It took quite some time.

Am working on understanding quaternion transformations. have no book on the deriving motion equations so

http://www.briancbecker.com/blog/2011/why-i-detest-labview/
Gives an excellent account of how a guy comes to grips with a 'graphical'  'programming language'!!

http://www.microchip.com/forums/m598280-print.aspx
says that the C generator is really good.

http://blog.cordiner.net/2011/05/03/object-tracking-using-a-kalman-filter-matlab/
Will work on implementing the kalman filter found in this link. Hopefully will give enough of a boost to understand how Kalman filters can be used in our pentacopter. This would be at the final stages of the project. I guess!!
 

Oh my!

I find that the robotics module examples are based only on the CRIO and the SBRIO kits, which is disturbing. There is an example for localization with an extended kalman filter. Which still means that someone has to derive the motion equations.

Really new thing, this.  LIFA (Labview interface for ARDUINO)module works on bluetooth! what??!! I said what?!! interesting. So, now I get that you just canNOT transliterate the VI file into an ARDUINO 2560 file, you can just exchange data between two software programs.

Wrong C code generatorAn EKF can be designed in the control design user manual. instructions are possibly laid down over there. Labview can generate C code. Can we program the ARDUINO 2560 based on this C code? Nohttp://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/373144B-01/lvcgenhelp/cgen_gen_code_from_vis/
I just now found that the VI file has to be designed with a C code generator.
After downloading the 329 MB that was the C code generator I realised that it was for labview 2012, which I do not have.AAARRRRGH!

Now am downloading labview 2011's C code generator.
There is no C code generator for labview 2011. The link is replaced with the file for labview 2012. 
My feeling:
Honestly, I have second thoughts about this. Like all those who think the following
1. How do I plan on using NI labview without a CompactRIO, without hardware. Labview interacts with ARDUINO itself by bluetooth. So, using NI labview with 2560 won't work.
2. How do I plan to do the control loops without NI labview? It is impossible to do the work manually, in this time frame.(April final submission. so, by March must have results)
3. How do I plan to put all those control loops even if I write them onto the ARDUINO2560 which has 65 KB of memory.

My only answer to all these questions...... What else can I do?
There will be no progress, otherwise.
1. I can ask DRONE aerospace for help. That did not work much last time.
2. I can go to anywhere else, locally, but they would just advise us to pay 125 dollars for ARDUcopter and be done with it.
3. There is an Intel ATOM development board at college. will have to ask Dr. Premanand sir it worked realtime in ashwath anna's project in identifying, tracking him in a video.(realtime) but runs only the windows XP and Meego, Debian operating systems, It will probably work. but how do you code the control loops etc on to the ATOM board. They could run OpenCV on it, which means the windows XP can run anything including hopefully NI labview, system memory limit at 512 MB but supports Intel memory virtualization which hopefully means extension of the memory.


That's it.
Another thing. Please everybody, we need to get the motion equations before doing anything else. If we have these equations, we have state, if we have state, we can ask for desired position. then, we have navigation.. This is my view. If wrong, please correct.
Have to thank L.Ramanathan, Satheeswaran, Satish Ravichandran for help on understanding how to interface MATLAB with ARDUINO!!! Rama+ Sathees+Satish===genius!!

The following is the most inspiring post I have ever read till date. This is amazing. I have never had anyone, a teacher, a person who has learnt to continue learning to be a better individual; a better person; a better teacher for life than this person, Mr.Lee Hollman, whose post in NYC resistor reads:

It may be a bit of an odd request, but... does anyone have a used Wii console and controller that they'd consider donating to a school? I'd be using it to teach not only actual subjects, but even meditation (yes, you read that right) to help my special ed kids.(I plan on hooking it up to a SmartBoard and using games from thatgamecompany and Deepak Chopra in between classes).  I'll probably do a donorschoose project to get a Wii if no one here has one, but figured I'd try this board first. I received an awesome VEX kit from one of you generous folks here, once.

Incidientally, I teach all manner of robotics here, including coaching a Lego Mindstorms team, so any robotics kits that people don't want will find a good home here too. Please contact me, and I'll give you my school contact info and everything that you need to prove I'm legit. Thanks!

His email address reads:Lee_Hollman@hotmail.com

And, I hope that anyone who can, will support this person. Things like this are what can make an amazing future for people.

How do I start with deriving the equations of motion for the pentacopter?

will update tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.

till then let's wait and see. I also have my own examinations so please bear with me.

The following is the most inspiring post I have ever read till date. This is amazing. I have never had anyone, a teacher, a person who has learnt to continue learning to be a better individual; a better person; a better teacher for life than this person, Mr.Lee Hollman, whose post in NYC resistor reads:

It may be a bit of an odd request, but... does anyone have a used Wii console and controller that they'd consider donating to a school? I'd be using it to teach not only actual subjects, but even meditation (yes, you read that right) to help my special ed kids.(I plan on hooking it up to a SmartBoard and using games from thatgamecompany and Deepak Chopra in between classes).  I'll probably do a donorschoose project to get a Wii if no one here has one, but figured I'd try this board first. I received an awesome VEX kit from one of you generous folks here, once.

Incidientally, I teach all manner of robotics here, including coaching a Lego Mindstorms team, so any robotics kits that people don't want will find a good home here too. Please contact me, and I'll give you my school contact info and everything that you need to prove I'm legit. Thanks!

His email address reads:Lee_Hollman@hotmail.com

And, I hope that anyone who can, will support this person. Things like this are what can make an amazing future for people.

There and back again

1. Labview can make a quadcopter fly(http://labviewrobotics.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/how-to-build-a-quad-rotor-uav/). This person uses a powerPC 400 MHz processor with a SingleBoardRIO. It requires there to be a compactRIO, hardware that was made by N.I., that costs Rs. 2,35,700. Again, it does work for the ARDUINO as presented at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGRhIQneO6w. This is just for the switching of an LED. LIFA(Labview interface for ARDUINO) is a free download that helps you do just that. You need to download the VI package manager and then the LIFA interface. That's just it.
2. French company 'Parrot' has developed an interface between its own on board computer based on an RTOS(which I don't know about yet), and Labview. This means that there is no general case like for the ARDUINO.
3. A real time operating system is used to process real time requests without buffering delays. A RTOS is focused on a narrow set of applications. Therefore, we want to classify it as 'hard' or 'soft' depending on the variabliity in jitter. Jitter is the variability in time taken to accept and complete an application's task. There is something called the R.O.S. the robot operating system developed at Stanford. Have to follow up on what it is.
4. To simulate control of the pentacopter I need to develop an X plane plane simulator version of the pentacopter, that will give linear velocities and positions of the penta in the X plane environment.  This will be supplied as input to the VI file in Labview using the SIL(Standard Interchange Language that is based on SQL and allows for transfer of data between software programs)http://www.sbai2013.ufc.br/pdfs/8127.pdf
Again, you do require to mathematically model the motion equations, to even get the thing onto
5. Something that really gives me hope alot of hope

"The system was simple. Each propeller created a thrust, and the four thrusts combined to counteract gravity. We put together our model using text-based code in an NI LabVIEW MathScriptNode, checked it against the literature, and moved forward to the control code.

We wanted to combine a linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) with a Kalman filter to build a Linear-Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control algorithm. LabVIEW software provided the tools to make the model linear, create the gain matrices for the LQR controller, help tune the Kalman filter, and implement the LQR and Kalman filter. We wrapped the closed-loop system in a LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module Loop, tuned a few parameters, and assembled a full simulation of the system.

Here was the exciting part: By using the LabVIEW toolchain, we had the opportunity to reuse the work we did modeling and developing the control algorithm to create the deployed system. We moved the simulation code to the real-time processor of the NI Single-Board RIO and replaced the model of the quadcopter with real I/O. And, with a little tuning, we had a flying robot."http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/pub/p/id/1012

6.http://www.sbai2013.ufc.br/pdfs/7920.pdf describes in a relatively simpler method, the idea of motion of a quadcopter, it's simpler because the author does not just put a couple of results and graphs and actually goes through with solving the equations.

7. I spoke to my good friend Vidya, who promised to teach me something about Kalman filters so that I can understand how and when to use it in the project. This is a long term thing. 

Current goals==

1. Finish the motion equations.

2. Finish the simulation using SIL  SIMULINK/X-Plane or SIL NI LABVIEW/X- Plane

Finish the above by January's end. 

Okay even if I do get the control  loops ready, will there be enough memory on board the ARDUINO ATMEGA2560 board to do those computations for attitude, the extended kalman filter etc.!!!!

What do we do next? date10th August.

The most important thing to take from the mess is that we need to work on what we have as inventory, and make a list of everything. Who has what should be put down on paper.
Apart from that, the next useful thing that is close to completion is getting data from the IMU. Now, there is a question, how do I know if the IMU is working or not. Now, I did make all the right connections. It was double checked by Nitin. Have to try to get useful data from the IMU. The second thing that can be done is learning as much as possible about Kalman filtering. Both these things will be done by tomorrow morning.
We checked the IMU, apparently not a single chip on that board seems to work. They just don't work, which brings me to another unhappy conclusion, the board is fried. Now, Lv and me got the copter resoldered we were looking at the next qtestion

Motors don't beep and IMU sends three zero x as data

Right now, feeling really weird and sort of screwed up. The unbelievable bit is this. I committed and I really mean committed to getting the entire operation i.e. the penta running, in these three days. Unsurprisingly, we got stuck at step 1. Our idea was to divide our work into the following stuff that we need to do-
1.Calibrate the motors.
2. Get data from the IMU and this time, meaningful data i.e. not a single stream of 30x thatdoes not change no matter how much you turn or swoosh the IMU in midair like you were making it takeoff instead of the penta!
3. Make the PID loops get this data and get the outputs. Now, transform the output to meaningful PWM
4. Write two kalman filters.(The one thing that I really understood about the kalman filter is that it can predict a position(the one that we want), then correct our present path to reach that position and then estimate how close we are to our defined path)
5. Get data from the UltraSonic sensors, the GPS and then see how this data fits in with everything else
 Where did the screw up happen?
1. Ok. The motors didn't beep. What the hell? Is that even possible? The beep means that the motor is ready to be calibrated. Ok. Calm down, I said to myself. Then, I checked each motor and ESC. None of them beeped. Yes I am using the Turnigy product D2836/6 motor with a 30A ESC also bought from HobbyKing. None of them worked!
Ok.Calm down. There has got to be a rational explanation for this. You know you didn't touch the motors, or the ESC or the penta until now. Eureka! The battery must be out of charge. Then, again, didn't have the battery charger. Ok, what else could I do? I remembered that I had another motor that was for a different spec, and voila! It worked like clockwork, and beeped as well as roadrunner on the looney toons. Now, I am getting weird. How and what could this mean? There is no way that all the ESCs can do the same thing.
2. Ok, that didn't work. So, I tried to do the second best thing. Getting data from the IMU was pissing off I had weird errors with my ARDUINO. One, it would forget the COM port after two trials of uploading the code and receiving the values. Two, there was no way of knowing what data I had. I mean that the data was constantly in the same range no matter what. Ok, that didn't work. The next best thing was to use the breakout pins, and get some data off of it. Now, this time, I did find something interesting. Hopefully, this meant that the board worked. two things
-1-The VCC pin gave a constant reading of 1023
-2-The ground gave a constant reading of 0.
It wasn't much but, it gives me hope.
Now, the values I got from SDATA and SCLK weren't too interesting. It might as well have not been done. The data shows no change when you move it in the air, abruptly; no change when you rotate it about the three axes. I mean a meaningful stream of data. And, that proved that the data did not come from the gyros or the acceleros.AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!! I feel like Juan Martin Del Potro, though I know I'm a noob right now at this whole business, but, I'm gonna get better. 

to be or not to be!!

Well, right now we face a question with two options

1.       Do we create the stability algorithm by ourselves?

2.       Do we use the PI control already in the KK multicopter board?

Advantages of doing it by ourselves:

1.       No confusion, i.e. even if we are able to access the information by ourselves on the KK board(assuming that we go with option 2), we’d need to manipulate the same information for the long term automation process.

2.       We will not have knowledge on the basic things required

3.       Information on what we are about to do is hard to come by.

4.       The PI loops are inbuilt for quad configurations and not for five wings. The original plan was to go ahead with five wings disguised as four i.e. to clip together two rotors, to simulate it’s motion as a quad ‘+’ configuration.

Advantages of using the KK multicopter board

1.       If it works, then all our work is simplified. i.e. we don’t need to do the stability part at all.

2.       We can access Acceleros, gyros from two sources, the IMU and the KK board. This gives us redundancy, which is great

Disadvantages of doing it by ourselves:

1.       Will take too much time, time that we do have, and are not using

Disadvantages of using the KK board for stability control
1. Have to think about how to get data from the acceleros and gyros into the ARDUINOkit, reading them, and then using both the sets of data

2.       The four motor quad configuration vs. The five motor penta configuration etc.

What do I do now?

Priorities:

1.       Write an arduino code for moving stability of the penta

2.       Write another code to know where the penta is in space.

HiHIHI it's going to be a long night!!!