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
Here's my entry for the 100m square, using ArduCopter. I made a mistake and didn't set the WP Hit area to a smaller amount. I usually have it set to 3 meters, but really 1m would be best. Instead the default of 20m or so was used. The blue line is the mission plan, so the two actual missions shown are offset by 15m or so. Oops!
The orange run is at 4m/s setting and the green is at 7m/s setting. Winds were heading east around 5-10mph.
The total times are 2:22 for the yellow and 1:03 for the green. These both include the 75m traverse to the first WP and back to home.
This is running version 2.1 which is the parallel track version for 2.0.55 using the new APM 2 libraries.
It worked so well, I think it will release soon.
Hi Ric,
Nice turns.
Best regards, Bill
Wow, Ric! That is cool and impressive.
Best Regards, Phil
Forgot the .kmz file link.
Ric
... but ...
just for fun I would like to make another entry :
So what's the reason ?
I did it in inverted flight ;p
You can see in the following pictures the plane rolling inverted autonomously, while entring the pattern, doing a turn in inverted flight and rolling back to normal after the end always in autonomous mode. (Hey Gary any bonus for this one ?)
Time to go bed now here.
Good night,
Ric
Hi,
I had as a reserve a quicker launch.
Same plane, same settings as my previous entry.
Time was 40.75, so only 1.5seconds slower than a Funjet :D
But I have the doubt it is valid. Anyway it is not the best time, so it is not very important.
.kmz file is here.
Best regards,
Ric
Here's my final copter entry and update to my original entry on page 7.
Time: 1:43
Aircraft: ArduCopter with APM
Log File
Same waypoints as in my original submittion. This was with 2.0.55, + configuration, no sonar, and I modified the Nav_WP PIDs from 4m/s to 8m/s which shaved over a minute of time off.
No chance for weak winds since 3 weeks or so. Anyway my platform was tuned for thermaling recently.
Krzysztof Bosak - FLEXIPILOT - Monton 1600V - 94s
I estimate the same path flown at no wind to 70-71s, but since the tracking would be also much better, 60s time would be feasible. The airframe flies at 60km/h, unfortunately all I was able to fly in was 31km/h average wind at 40deg. It appears that because of the wind alone, my results 2 years ago with EasyUAV were better.
The other 5 trials conducted among daily testing with my other platforms took place at 25-40km/h wind and turned out even worse concerning pattern time because of turbulence in the air.
The platform is here:
The KML logs are here:
http://www.aerialrobotics.eu/examples/T3%202011%20fig%208%20speed%2...
The autopilot is amateur construction in the sense it was developed from personal funding and is not sold separately.
The takeoff was fully automatic and quite hot with some 40 deg climb angle.
The autopilot was switched off at the last loiter orbit, followed by brutally-driven manually piloted descent and landing.
Hi Colin, those are lovely turns at speed. Great flight. Best wishes, Pete
I’ve just completed another attempt at the course, this time with a new airframe. It’s all been a bit of a last minute rush to get it working in time, but I’m very happy with my time: 39.25 seconds
Here’s a google earth screen grab of the track:
I had a lot of problems with electronic noise coming from the balance plug on the lipo, if incorrectly placed it’d stop the gyros from initialising or create massive amounts of jitter on the servos and throttle! In the end I found a sweet spot and things were okay for the circuits.
Files for the flight can be found on my github page: KMZ, APM log, waypoint locations
Thanks again for the contest, its been fun :-)
Colin
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