Stephen and I practed flying the hexakoptors.  We were able to fly Roflkopter (one of the hexakopters) from the lab to the library, over the library and adjacent garage, and land on a 2ft by 2ft board.  In addition to the lirary expedition, we also practiced maneuvering the hexakopters, landing on a target, and getting them flying at the correct altitude.  Furthermore, we used the GoPro camera to capture video and pictures of the flights.  (The camera was mounted on the hexakopter.)  Unfortunately, the pictures had a lot of compression (as can be seen by the picture to the left that was taken in the lab).  Next week we will be testing to see if adjusting the setting will yield better images.

Below is a link to a video from the GoPro as we flew through Academic Row.  The first half of the video is with the distortion and the second half is the cleaned-up version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtPkQShCR8c&context=C451b577ADvjVQa1PpcFNA2j44Y1Kwcn_6Rdo149XVXfaZn7cl70E=

As many of you know our attempt at photographing Elbow Ridge Farm via two EasyStars this past weekend was anything but successful. Although the primary issue of Auto mode being inactive was eventually resolved at the field by trimming the endpoints on the mode toggle switch, we were still unable to fly our missions due to the system failing to obtain a GPS lock. Even after that weekend when the GPS was relocated to a more familiar region it was unable to obtain a GPS signal. Out of frustration I had decided to clear the GPS settings and delete the current firmware. Starting from scratch I reloaded both the firmware for the GPS as well as a script which enables it to communicate with the ArduPilot. In doing this I had also updated the GPS to a more recent firmware version. Just as it had in the past the ArduPilot was able to get a GPS lock within 5 minutes of being powered up (as indicated by the solid blue LED on IMU shown in the above picture). I’m planning on flying a short mission with the EasyStar tomorrow afternoon to make sure everything is working as it should be. Hopefully this will better prepare us for our next trip to Elbow Ridge Farm.

This week Jonathan had given me the camera mount and landing gear from one of the old Gaui quads so I could attach it to the new ArduCopter system. I just figured I’d post a picture of the new setup. The landing gear had to be extended by 2 in to provide enough clearance for the camera so I drew up a CAD model and laser cut a set of extensions out of 1/8’’ thick plastic sheet (triangular support structure on bottom). I had also added a servo to the camera mount and attached it to one of the output ports on the ArduPilot Mega to provide automatic camera stabilization. So far it seems to work great but we’ll need to upgrade the stabilizing servo if we plan to fly missions with camera stabilization activated.