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