Hello ensemble,
this is a flight done with the Proxima II, using a UAVDevBoard v4 for autopilot assisted thermal exploitation.
Telemetry on screen is done with DashWare. I had to create a profile for UDB to use the telemetry file with that program and had to adapt a few gauges also. The profile is attached, in the case someone needs it.
Plane was flown around sometime to catch a good thermal and put then in autonomous flight. Just a loiter programmed with LOGO. At the top the thermal was so strong that it was a little bit hard to bring the glider down without destroying it in flight.
In a previous thermal I had to reposition the plane to center the thermal again. That simply requires to come off from autonomous mode, reposition and switch autonomous mode again.
Nice to watch GPS speed vs. airspeed as well as pitch.
Additional hardware: ChannelWizard
On screen instruments provided by DashWare.
Instruments from left are:
- GPS speed (SOG)
- IMU computed airspeed
- GPS satellites number
- autopilot mode (110 stabilized, 111 autonomous)
- GPS computed acceleration
- IMU pitch
- vertical wind speed
- altitude from start point
- altitude above sea
Best regards,
Ric
Comments
I'm doing something similar with an EasyGlider and APM. The main difference is that no LOGO script is required, else it's the same principle :
I'm flying in FBWA mode, and use a switch on my transmitter that has the same effect as pushing the roll stick to the right.
As it's FBWA mode, the plane will simply keep a constant roll angle while maintaining the pitch on the best glide angle.
It's very efficient to thermal, and in a large thermal it will climb several hundred meters without touching the commands.
For smaller thermals time a recentering is required from time to time. For this I just use the same switch to go straight for a few second at the right moment to recenter the thermal.
What I like with this method is that the pitch and the roll can be chosen with great precision to keep the plane at its speed for minimal sink rate.
Thanks!
A few answer:
- loiter is programmed as LOGO flight plan, which is a Matrix Pilot feature
- Rana, you can display everything is recorded in the telemetry file. It requires few gauges to be matched, but DasWare does include some powerful calculators.
Ric
Well done!!
I have wanted to do this for a long time. Great to see!!
Hi Riccardo,
Very nice flight. Free airmiles all over the place!
Kees
Very cool!!! So many possibilities with that.
Nice efforts Ricardo !
Were you able to display GPS lat-long, Voltage, Current, mAh ?
That looks interesting because I love soaring.
It may sound like a silly question since I'm completely unfamiliar with UAVDevBoard and it's firmware, but what do you mean with "Just a loiter programmed with LOGO"? Is it really just a loiter, because loiter doesn't exist in the standard firmware, or do you actually write some lift centering logic? The latter is very difficult to do well and requires a lot of statistical data and analysis to determine the best strategies.
B.t.w. a fast way to come down in a strong thermal is fly inverted with spoilers out, and if that's not enough, then spin inverted too if the glider is capable of that.