28 March

Making great strides on the final paper, should be pretty much done by the end of this weekend.

26 March

Started working on the Final paper.
Fixed the Telemaster this weekend with Mr. Ogorek's help.
Going to get the autpilot configured on the futaba controller.
Will try to schedule a flight with the autopilot soon.

Need to pull ESC data tonight.

19 March

Flew the Telemaster, gonna pull the ESC data tonight
Worked with Brian yesterday and got the Autopilot working
AP can now fly the plane in the X-Plan simulator.
Going to begin work soon on the final papers

1 Mar

Worked with Brian on the AutoPilot
Got the Autopilot, BEC and CC link for my laptop
Recorded the current consumption of the AP and all the attached modules
Started putting the electronics in the Telemaster

27 Feb

Still waiting on parts and autopilot telemetry
Started to develop image recognition system with MATLAB
Alphanumeric recognition:

Converts image taken from camera into text
Got the video from the test camera through my laptop's usb driver
worked rather well
had to hand-select the image to process though
need to figure out how to automatically select the text image input and crop accordingly
was really easy to get the camera feed through matlab

20 Feb

Tried to get block camera working today... no luck
Helped Ryan with the hotwire
Cut some foam for the aircraft

19 Feb

Tested camera video feed on Thursday

Was a little scratchy but, overall successful

Now we know this will work for our UAS up to 2 mi

BEC and other misc electronics parts ordered from Hobby Town

Frank is supposed to call me when they come in

14 Feb

Got motor batteries in today.

The ESC DOES NOT have a BEC as the vendor assured me.

Going to have to order a BEC separately

Testing motor on the batts now.

Tested the motor with the fluke attached

1/4 Throttle 1.01 A

1/2 Throttle 1.46 A

Full Throttle 2.03 A

13 Feb

Waiting for motor/ESC batteries to arrive.
Fed current to completed autopilot board to determine its consumption.

Pulls 140 mA when operating at 5V

Should be able to power AP from the ESC once I get my batteries.

Possible problem: Battery charger from ThunderPower is not big enough to handle the 8-cell batteries.

Vendor's mistake again.

May have to use another groups lipo charger.

06Feb

Wired up motor and ESC with plugs 

Motor and ESC

Motor-ESC connection

ESC-Battery Connector

02Feb

Wired up camera battery for the video camera and the TX.
Got the plugs wired and attached everything.

Camera battery with charger

Wired up camera battery and TX power plugs

Mobile test rig (Box) with camera poking out

Tx in box, had to add a fan to keep it from overheating

Tx is designed to operate with airflow from flight, excessive heat ruins video feed

Camera taped in at right

Brian finished the Autopilot board

Brian debugging the autopilot

1Feb

Today re-wired the TX and epoxied the wires so they don't fall out again.
Hooked up the video equipment and got it running!

TX above, channel 8 takes 12 V consumes 450 mA while operating

CCD Camera hooked up to the TX, takes 12V 90 mA while operating

Complete testing rig with power supplies

Receiver has dedicated power supply 5V

 TV with video feed from other room

Going to start testing with the battery power supply with the camera and TX

Want to get the camera and TX off the plug in power supplies and on a battery

Also going to range check camera 

30Jan

Tested video equipment
Got video from the camera sucessfully
Having TX problems
Had to re solder wires in TX

Going to test with better power supply
12V DC input 450 mA operational current

http://www.dronesvision.com/lawmate-1-2ghz-1000mw-wireless-av-transmitter/

27Jan

Went to HPMI safety brief.
Now we can utilize their lab to build our plane.

25Jan

Eric got his parts in today
Will soon start testing the video feed

24Jan

Worked briefly on Telemaster with Ryan.

23Jan

Got parts to repair apprentice.
Repaired apprentice.
Meeting 1800-1900.

18Jan

Got my test aircraft up and running.
Promptly crashed it after two flights.
Flying RC planes is HARD.
Ordered replacement parts.

Hopefully the Autopilot will fly this plane.
Having problems getting our parts in.

15Jan

Re-wired some of the batteries.
Got the avionics working.
Played with the transmitter and servo receivers.

14Jan

Started to work on the Telemaster Senior test aircraft.
Took out batteries and motor from last year.
Batteries were over charged.
Going to start re-wiring them.