The glorious return

Hello everybody, sorry to have kept you waiting for further updates but the lot of us (apart from Anton) has been on vacation. Now, however, the lot of us are back and production is in full swing!

So here's our updates, category by category:

Construction:

Chassi version 2 is assembled, including motors and APM!

Jens holding the assembled ArchQuad 2.0. Note that this picture is taken with the Raspberry Pi Cam!

We have had some issues with the APM (I think it's due to the new firmware released), but after clearing the EEPROM and wiping the APM and setting it up from scratch everything worked again.

We've also installed a custom battery in the 9XR (the controller used) and are now running it on a 7.4V battery from DFrobot (namely: http://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=battery&product_id=437#.UgJDgpL0Eb0) and it seems to like it! Just remember to set the voltage warning according to the battery, otherwise it will beep like crazy.

Other than that, I (Jens) have kept busy with updating the document governing the project and helping the other member while Anton has been working on the cameras.

Plan is that we finish the landing gears today and go out flying tomorrow! If everything goes as planned, we will post a video here tomorrow!

Camera:

Anton has been struggling against the RaspPi cam requiring a bit larger current than the wall-socket->USB converter could provide, but once the issue was identified it was solved fairly easy. The RaspPi cam is now up and running, now it is just an issue of what framerate to use and how to save it to either USB memory or SD-card.

Demonstration image taken with the RaspPi cam. This image has not been Photoshop'ed. Promise.

Anton has also received an IR camera CMOS module as seen in the picture below:

IR cam module.

However it does not seem trivial at all to get it to work, so that's something Anton (probably in collaboration with Alex) will be working on in the near future.

Interface:

Fancy splash screen of our app!

Albin is working hard on the android app aswell and he's vaguely optimistic which is a good sign. Since a program is never really done, it's hard to define "done", but hopefully the program will do everything needed of it.

Sonar/GPS:

Most of this week has been spent dealing with the sonars and trying to get a feel for them. A case for them has also been printed, as you can see.

Sonar casing which attaches directly below the battery pack.

Emma has done some research regarding the accuracy of the sonars, and they are actually pretty good and can detect even narrow objects at a fair distance. Her next project is wallowing through the APM code and finding a good way of implementing five sonars.

Magnetometers:

Since Erik (see picture under Camera) has basically everything set up regarding the magnetometers, he has spent the week researching and defining the interfaces that we will use, i.e how everything will communicate and be supplied with power. Not an easy task, but has to be done nevertheless.