SD-May1014 Team: Michael Peat, Kollin Moore, Matt Rich, Alex Reifert Advisors: Dr. Nicola Elia and Dr. Phillip Jones

 Objective: Create a small electrically powered autonomous flying vehicle capable of takeoff and landing from horizontal surfaces as well as stable indoor hover without human assistance.  Operating Environment: ◦ Indoors and Unobstructed Area ◦ Within Range of Position Tracking System  End Use and Users: ◦ The intended end use of our system will be continued research and development into the area of autonomous flight systems. ◦ The intended users will be knowledgeable engineering students and/or professors.

Helicopter Flight Mechanics Radio Controller Onboard Sensors: IR Camera Accelerometer Wireless Transmitter Ground Station

 Power System ◦ Designed a step-down buck converter circuit to power the Wiimote sensors using the helicopter’s battery  Required since the battery provides 7.4V and the Wiimote only requires 3.3V ◦ Currently exists on a breadboard circuit, will try and make the package smaller so it will only add minimal weight to the helicopter system  Helicopter Model ◦ Researching various papers and also the models created by the previous MicroCART group ◦ The end goal is to design a Simulink block diagram to maintain helicopter stability during flight ◦ Has been very challenging up to this point because many models are designed to work with standard helicopter blade configuration rather than coaxial

 Wii data analysis function completely re-written: ◦ Improved efficiency (run time, memory usage…), overall analysis capabilties (4 IR sets), expandability, and commenting significantly.  Modified Cwiid code ◦ Outputs re-formatted, timestamp added, file output and numbering added  Fabricated a cradle attaching Wii-mote to helicopter ◦ Modified existing Aluminum brackets and a portion of original Wii-mote case  Beginning further sensor testing ◦ Constellations, data resolutions, disturbance spectrum characterization…

 Reading Xbox Controller ◦ Rewrote and adapted software being used by Korebot Project ◦ Tested and all inputs are working and available  Manipulating values appropriately ◦ Mapped Xbox inputs to helicopter throttle, pitch, roll and yaw values. ◦ Tested and appropriate values are being generated.  Sending data using RS232 Serial port ◦ Sends Channel Command followed by value to FPGA state machine. ◦ Found current maximum refresh rate of 2ms. ◦ Appropriate voltage levels are seen at the DAC outputs.

 Traditionally used by physically changing potentiometers that in turn changed 4 control voltages  We decided to use the controller in a new way by directly changing the control voltages with a computer program ◦ We first measured the control voltages and recorded how they varied ◦ After carefully labeling the different control channels we stripped the controller of nonessential parts including the potentiometers ◦ First we test our idea by connecting the controller to controlled power source ◦ We finally connected the controller to a DAC and FPGA that allowed us to connect directly to our team laptop