Tuesday, September 29, 2015

RE: Gantt Chart Link —11/8

Feedback:
  1. The first part of Gannt chart is decent. You can just start working on your project accordingly.
  2. The sencond part of the Gantt chart is obviously missing probably due to the limited understanding of the task. I suggest that you revise it while you are working on the first part. and notify me through email when you are done.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Gantt Chart Link —11/8

Gantt Chart — 11/8

Since so far we are both doing the same things, we are not assigned separate tasks.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

The Air Force Collaboratory: Mind of a Quadrotor

The Air Force Collaboratory launched a quadrotor project two years ago. The goal is to develop an autonomous quadrotor that can think and make decision by itself like a human.

The program has mostly closed already. However, there are some general information and discussion on the website, which may be of interest to you. Please click the link and browse through the site for further info.

Monday, September 21, 2015

RE: Initial Planning & Coordination

Project Description
  • We are aiming to create a system by which a drone can autonomously fly in an indoor environment and deliver packages between specified locations.
  • Though this has essentially already been done by others, this project could potentially help implement this system in ElRo and further the practical knowledge and experience of our group members.
  • You can still improve the performance of the vision-based navigation by improving the algorithms.
Communication
  • Team: Owen G., Theo C. We communicate by texting and google docs.
  • Group: Our group is fairly independent. Though the drone take-down teams are related to ours in that we share the same equipment, we shouldn’t really need to communicate very much (if needed, email should suffice).
  • You can copy Theo's comments here for the Prior Work/Resource Inventory.
Tech Analysis
  • Navigate Linux
  • Run AR Drone SDK examples
  • Edit AR Drone SDK examples
  • Navigate AR Drone SDK
  • Use OpenCV
  • Incorporate OpenCV in AR Drone SDK

Competence
  • What we already know:
    • Minor experience in C
  • What we don’t already know:
    • Experience in Linux
    • Experience with the AR Drone
    • Experience with the SDK
      • Running examples
      • Editing examples
    • Experience with OpenCV
    • Further knowledge of C programming

Safety
  • Flying the drone offers a safety hazard; we need open, unoccupied spaces to test the flight of the drone.

Equipment, Materials, Budget
  • Parrot AR Drone (already purchased)
  • AR Drone SDK (free)
  • OpenCV (free)
  • Computer with Linux OS (free)

Schedule
  • This week we want to focus on having everything working as it was when the previous group finished. We want to run the SDK examples sdk_demo and navigation, as well as run the OpenCV application created by last year’s group on both of our computers. If we run into any problems, we want to resolve them by the end of this week.
  • We also, at the same time, want to work on our gantt chart. However, if it was not intended that we jump into the project yet, we can just try to finish the gantt chart before starting.
  • The first task will be done by both of us, and the second (gantt chart) will be edited by both of us, but I will share the gantt chart.

  • Research project planning is more like an iterative process, especially for beginners. The more you jump into the project, the more solid your planning will be. So, go ahead!

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Initial Planning and Coordination


Project Description
  • We are aiming to create a system by which a drone can autonomously fly in an indoor environment and deliver packages between specified locations.
  • Though this has essentially already been done by others, this project could potentially help implement this system in ElRo and further the practical knowledge and experience of our group members.

Communication
  • Team: Owen G., Theo C. We communicate by texting and google docs.
  • Group: Our group is fairly independent. Though the drone take-down teams are related to ours in that we share the same equipment, we shouldn’t really need to communicate very much (if needed, email should suffice).

Tech Analysis
  • Navigate Linux
  • Run AR Drone SDK examples
  • Edit AR Drone SDK examples
  • Navigate AR Drone SDK
  • Use OpenCV
  • Incorporate OpenCV in AR Drone SDK

Competence
  • What we already know:
    • Minor experience in C
  • What we don’t already know:
    • Experience in Linux
    • Experience with the AR Drone
    • Experience with the SDK
      • Running examples
      • Editing examples
    • Experience with OpenCV
    • Further knowledge of C programming

Safety
  • Flying the drone offers a safety hazard; we need open, unoccupied spaces to test the flight of the drone.

Equipment, Materials, Budget
  • Parrot AR Drone (already purchased)
  • AR Drone SDK (free)
  • OpenCV (free)
  • Computer with Linux OS (free)

Schedule
  • This week we want to focus on having everything working as it was when the previous group finished. We want to run the SDK examples sdk_demo and navigation, as well as run the OpenCV application created by last year’s group on both of our computers. If we run into any problems, we want to resolve them by the end of this week.
  • We also, at the same time, want to work on our gantt chart. However, if it was not intended that we jump into the project yet, we can just try to finish the gantt chart before starting.
  • The first task will be done by both of us, and the second (gantt chart) will be edited by both of us, but I will share the gantt chart.

Resources:
— On simultaneous localization and mapping:
http://www.nickd.nl/dl/thesis_Nick_Dijkshoorn.pdf 
— On using openCV within the SDK to stream video from the drone to a computer: 
http://petrkout.com/linux/parrot-ardrone-2-0-video-streaming-through-opencv-in-linux
— On using the special ROS to code the drone:
http://robohub.org/up-and-flying-with-the-ar-drone-and-ros-getting-started/
— A tutorial for programming the AR.Drone (communication syntax):
http://www.robotappstore.com/Knowledge-Base/Programming-ARDrone/101.html
— More info on the drone-computer communication
https://www.objc.io/issues/8-quadcopter/communicating-with-the-quadcopter/
https://abstract.cs.washington.edu/~shwetak/classes/ee472/assignments/lab4/drone_api.pdf
— Processing to communicate using UDP in oscP5 library
http://www.sojamo.de/libraries/oscp5/
— Processing to communicate using AR Drone library
http://kougaku-navi.net/ARDroneForP5/index_en.html
— Float to binary conversion
http://kipirvine.com/asm/workbook/floating_tut.htm
— SDK Understanding
http://gauth.fr/2011/09/introduction-to-the-ar-drone-sdk/
http://www.warp1337.com/content/ardrone-20-install-sdk-and-fly-2-minutes-ubuntu-linux-1210
http://www.ardrone-flyers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83

Resource from Last Year

Team Progress Report Blog: http://advstem1.blogspot.com/
Project Resource including Gantt Chart: http://stem14-15.blogspot.com/2015/02/project-resource-drone-delivery-system.html