Recent News
February 22, 2008: Update
Update on website: AME server is down and will not be coming back online ever. New arrangments
for website are being looked into.
New flight field location found at Page Ranch. We have constructed one runway at the new location
and have flown there once. Thanks Cory, Brandon, Cal, John, Ed, Austin and Seth. Here is an aerial
shot of new runway.
The scout plane construction is currently under way. The scout plane will be our level 1 vehicle
and be made out of fiber glass. The molds have been created for the plane. The fuselage is almost
finished. The wing molds are prepped for layup and will be layed up this next weekend.
The vision software V2.0 is coming along nicely. Ed and Kenny have dome some simple traning of the
new program and the results are good. Good accuracy at around 30 fps. We will be doing a data
gathering and initial flight test of new software this weekend
Tracking antenna works flawlessly. Tim did an awesome job programming the code and will work on
computer running the autopilot.
August 25, 2007: Update
It's been a long time since our last update. Sorry for not keeping up with the website
during the summer, but it has been an extremely busy summer for the club. It's hard to know
where to begin. We will start with Sig3.
Sig3:
We finished construction of Sig3 after a semester of carefully thought out design and
construction. It took its virgin flight at the beginning of summer in a RC flight testing its
airworthiness. Everything was going well for about eight minutes into the flight when for no
apparent reason the motor shut off. Brandon was at the sticks and was able to dead stick the
plane into a runway approach. In the last turn before the plane could land it stalled and fell
from the sky. The front end was smashed up pretty bad after the crash, but Cory and Brandon were
able to rebuild the plane in less than a week.
The cause of the crash was blamed on the unreliable large glow motor used on the plane. We then
purchased a Fuji Imvac gasoline motor and hoped that would be much more reliable and maintenance
free. The next month and a half was spent breaking in the new motor and trying to work out the
interference issues between the radio system and the electronic ignition system for the new motor.
After weeks of various trial and error methods of eliminating the interference the gasoline
engine was abandoned and a two stroke O.S. FT300 glow engine was swapped out. This engine had
been used by the club for a long time and would run even if one of the cylinders stopped firing.
With the engine installed and tested Sig3 was finally ready for autopilot integration. Time was
running out before competition however and autonomous flight testing and configuration would
have to wait until we were at the military airspace at Fort Benning. While installing the cameras in the plane a large flaw
was found in the overall design of the plane. The saddle tanks that were mounted on the side of
the plane prevented any cameras mounted in the large payload section from actually seeing anything
through the sides of the fuselage. We then bought a large 64oz fuel tank and installed it
internally in the plane and mounted the camera's on the shelf above the autopilot. Gains and
surfaces were then calibrated at a com range test was performed. Sig3 was then packed up into
the van and driven to Georgia.
Sig2:
At the flyday in early summer Sig2 was flown for the first time since last years competition
and was found to fly flawlessly. This plane was going to be the back up plane to Sig3 in the
competition. Sig2 went under autopilot integration and was quickly finished. Gains and surfaces
were calibrated and Sig2 was packed up and driven to Georgia.
Rover:
Cal worked on the rover as was able to take the CAD design and make it a reality. All of
components were able to be placed inside an inch and a half PVC tube except for the camera and
transmitter. The rover was able to drive around and wall follow and therefore was a prototype
proof of concept. We would unofficially attempt level 3 with the Rover.
Tracking Antenna:
This was not completed as hoped. By competition the antenna was able to
accurately point at any GPS point fed into the program. It was not able to grab the GPS
information from the piccolo software and therefore was unable to autonomously point at the plane
during flight.
Competition 2007:
Overall we completed all the goals we went to competition wanted to complete.
We were the first team ever to seamlessly transition from Level 1 to Level 2. We had both Sig2
and Sig3 flying autonomously in a reliable manner. We got video footage of the town from the
camera's mounted on the planes and still images from Sig3. The ground station and video capturing
systems worked out well in our extremely mobile HQ. Overall a very good competition. The only
problems the club had was Sig2 tail wheel fell off during one of the flights and Sig1's tail wheel
was used as a replacement. Then on our 3rd attempt of the day there was a problem with Sig3's com
antenna and mid-flight, shortly after take off com went down and continued to phase in and out.
The kill device was used to shut off the motor to prevent the plane from going ballistic.
However, Brandon was able to dead stick Sig3 and glide it into a semi-hard landing near the runway
and the only thing that happened was some bent landing gear and a cracked wing support.