Two and half years ago, we started the T3 (Trust Time Trial) Contest here at DIY Drones. The idea was simple: give people a mission to accomplish, on their own field and on their own time. They would record the telemetry, and submit a KML file with the result (we "trust" that it hasn't been faked). We could then compare the result and decide who was the winner (fastest time, best pattern, etc), as if they had all been racing/competing head-to-head.
Back then, it was an accomplishment just to complete an autonomous mission with a regular plane. But we've made a lot of progress since then, and that's now possible with a multicopter or traditional helicopter, too. So it's time to relaunch the T3 Competition. And we're going to do it by returning to the first mission ever: the Figure Eight, but this time expanded to include copters.
Figure Eight Mission Rules:
- There are two categories: Fixed Wing and Rotary Wing (multicopters or traditional helis). 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards will be given in both.
- Must complete the pattern as shown above, totally autonomously (go into auto mode before waypoint 1 and exit after you hit waypoint 1 again). The four points are arranged in a square, with 200m on a side for fixed wing aircraft and 100m on a side for rotary wing aircraft (obviously the two diagonal paths are longer). Any aircraft/autopilot allowed. It doesn't matter how close to the waypoints you get, as long as you pass on the outside of them.
- Altitude is not graded.
- Fastest time in each category to hit all points and return to 1 wins (one lap).
- The Judge will be Gary Mortimer, as always!
- Deadline is Sunday, Dec 11th, at midnight PST.
- 1st Prize in each category is a $100 gift certificate to the DIY Drones store. 2nd and 3rd prizes are $25 each.
Entries should include these three things:
- Total time, along with aircraft (and type: fixed or rotary wing) and autopilot used. A photo of the aircraft would be nice, too.
- KML file of the run (an onboard video is also encouraged, but not required)
- Screen capture of path exported to Google Earth or an equivalent, annotated with waypoints and where autonomy began and ended. Here's a sample from my first entry, way back then (original ArduPilot!):
Comments
Lap times
1:25
1:33
1:35
1:42
It was quite windy - avg 5 m/s, gusts to 8 m/s, more or less from the top of the map.
Same setup as before: Parkzone Radian, Arduplane 2.26.
I turned of cross track gain to get rid of the S-shapes, played a bit with the throttle settings and started really high and descended through the WPs on the course, then programmed a loop to climb before starting another lap. Altitude is not graded and the Radian really doesn't want to go fast so I thought I'd use a bit of gravity to help it along.
KML from today's run
Ric,
Nice flight. For interest, I enclose a screenshot of one of your turns in that flight (viewed with your KMZ file that you included in the above post).
Best wishes, Pete
@Ric,
Thank you so much for always "pushing the envelope" and for the enormous amount of testing that you do. You are the ace, the #1 test pilot of the UDB team. And thank you for entering the T3 contest.
Best regards,
Bill Premerlani
Hi all,
seen that multiple entries are allowed I start with my first one.
The race started at 12:51:19 and ended at 12:52:02. You can see it in the picture.
Total time is then 43 seconds.
.kmz file is here.
It is the second try.
The plane is an Acromaster tuned for aerobatics and 3D equipped with a slow 920Kv motor and 3 cells lipo.
I set it up for more speed to take part to this contest with some standard (12x10) and modified (11x12, 10x12) propellers.
Radio control is Graupner with ACT 2.4GHz system.
The plane is equipped with a Uavdevboard prototype, pre V3, mounted on an oilpan, which accomodate a modified RC receiver too.
Other equipment are Ublox GPS at 4Hz, magnetometer (not used for this entry), Openlog.
Here you can have a look at some pictures of the plane.
Flight plan is in LOGO, not waypoints.
I would like to point that all this was only possible thanks the UDB team and his continuous 24/24 -7/7 assistance (nice part of time zones :D) :
- Pete Hollands and his analysis tools and ability and other great programmings not related to this contest : he is always present ! ;
- Ben Levitt and his programming skills, in particular programming in the last minute a variable speed option
that I used extensively, for LOGO flight plans, which I also use extensively (e.g. for this flight) and many other features not related to this contest;
- Bill Premerlani, the magnificent guru of this project, which solves in the shower all the problems I find :D and a big amount of other incredible improvements too. Trying to describe what he is able to do, with my poor english and knowledge, would not give him the right credit, so let me avoid to write silliness ...
I'm really honored to be in contact with such great persons. Thank you all !
Best regards,
Ric
@Jeremy,
Also, I think there was a good chance that your Copter went around all 4 waypoints correctly. It may be that communications dropped out shortly after waypoint 2, and did not resume until sometime after waypoint 3. Hopefully you can get communications working better, maybe by flying at a higher altitude.
Also, you could use something like an OpenLog to do onboard recording of the data, so you could still have a qualifying entry, even if communications drop out.
Best regards,
Bill
@Chris - I was running ArduCopter 2.0.40, + configuration (yes I know I have the battery mounted in the x config), all default PIDs, no Sonar (that's what I will be purchasing with any winnings :-) )
@William - Losing communication with the ground station is what I figured. As this was my first Auto mode flight I didn't really take my eyes off the Copter to see what was going on in the Ground Station. I will monitor this more closely next time.
@igal - Wind was essentially calm, maybe 1-2 mph from East to West (<--). I waited all Thanksgiving weekend for there to be 'no wind'.
Well done all that have entered now, including the only rotary type brave enough!
1:38
1:38
1:39
Slow, but consistent. You'll also see that I overdid the size a bit, at 237 m. Even though it didn't always go around the WPs, I think I'm OK ondistance.
I'm using a Parkzone Radian with standard power system, APM2560, Ublox GPS, no airspeed sensor, and Xbee downlink. Flying at 80% throttle setting. It doesn't really want to go faster with any more. I got about 10 s out of the lap time by tuning the PIDs, but you can see there's more to be had. Things were even more S-shaped to begin with.
KML
Jeremy what is the wind direction ?
Hi Jeremy,
It looks like a perfect straight line is plotted for a portion of the flight between WP2 and WP3. I think that means that communications to your ground station was lost on that leg, so the plot includes a line between two distant points.
Best regards,
Bill
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