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.