08 March 2009
IR 2 and New Photos
08 Mar 09 11:55
MADS has successfully completed Interim Review #2! You can find our presentation under the “Documentation” section.
We also have photos from our first successful Autopilot Flight Test! You can find these under the “Photos” section.
We also have photos from our first successful Autopilot Flight Test! You can find these under the “Photos” section.
Update for Week of Feb. 22-Mar. 1
08 Mar 09 11:53
This was an interesting week for MADS. At the beginning of the week we planned to have a full deployment test today and by the end we weren't even flying the PV. A few snags wing getting boards printed and sensor snafus were the main causes.
The circuit boards were ordered and printed by Advanced Circuits and due to an online ordering mess up we got all our boards for $20 but sadly the design wasn't 100% right and we needed to redo them. The second time around we were not so lucky with the ordering and the boards were going to be very expensive and we decided instead to print them in Tim May's shop. This went well and we now have boards that are in the process of being populated. Once done we will test the deployment commands on the ground and hope to have the deployment flight next weekend.
The sensor package that has been a chore to put together and get all the wiring done. Our plane now looks like Frankenstein. We ran into issues with some sensors and bad wiring and popping chips so this was not completed this week and caused the grounding of the PV. We hope to fix all of the issues and have the whole package ready for ground testing mid week and airborne by the weekend.
Aside from the problems MADS was successful at integrating a flow meter into the PV and transmitting its data through the CUPIC to the GS so we now know how much fuel the PV has in flight. The software guys also have got the SV CUPIC working wonderfully and were able to fly this weekend on autopilot. Two successful flights for a total of 19 min on autopilot and with autopilot landings made this a good weekend. Now back to work for us.
Posted by Scott Tatum
The circuit boards were ordered and printed by Advanced Circuits and due to an online ordering mess up we got all our boards for $20 but sadly the design wasn't 100% right and we needed to redo them. The second time around we were not so lucky with the ordering and the boards were going to be very expensive and we decided instead to print them in Tim May's shop. This went well and we now have boards that are in the process of being populated. Once done we will test the deployment commands on the ground and hope to have the deployment flight next weekend.
The sensor package that has been a chore to put together and get all the wiring done. Our plane now looks like Frankenstein. We ran into issues with some sensors and bad wiring and popping chips so this was not completed this week and caused the grounding of the PV. We hope to fix all of the issues and have the whole package ready for ground testing mid week and airborne by the weekend.
Aside from the problems MADS was successful at integrating a flow meter into the PV and transmitting its data through the CUPIC to the GS so we now know how much fuel the PV has in flight. The software guys also have got the SV CUPIC working wonderfully and were able to fly this weekend on autopilot. Two successful flights for a total of 19 min on autopilot and with autopilot landings made this a good weekend. Now back to work for us.
Posted by Scott Tatum