Date: 12/02/10 [[BR]]
Location: Tri Valley [[BR]]
Aircraft: Loki [[BR]]
Pilot:  Garrison Hoe & Arion Mangio [[BR]]
Flights: 9 Loki[[BR]]

[source:/trunk/FlightData/2010_12_02 Link to Flight Data]

Garrison, Arion, and myself took Loki to UMORE Park today. Weather was good; sunny, NW winds around 7 MPH, temps around 20-25F. Wind chill was challenging; we found using the car as a windbreak was successful. Facemasks and ski goggles also work well. The snow was harder than before, though there were a few light drifts of fluffy snow that would catch the airplane wheels. No plowing was noted at Tri Valley or Jensen.

The objectives for the deployment were:

1. Run system ID programs for Arda, Andrei, and Rohit (respective team leads), including doublets for model validation.
2. Run ramp fault injection profiles.
3. Get data on telemetry performance.

We completed 9 flights with data; 11 total flights (see below). We recharged one battery using the car.

Loki Flight 34: Right aileron ramp fault. In this flight, the aircraft will hold 5 deg pitch and zero bank angle for 4 seconds. At this point, a ramp bias is added to the right aileron (bank angle command is still zero). The magnitude alternated between -5 and -10 degrees (trailing edge up, right roll). The ramp time was 12 seconds in both cases. The controller command to the right aileron was held fixed (ie, the controller couldn't use the right aileron once the fault was injected). After the ramp is at its maximum, a roll doublet was commanded (+/-20 deg bank). This was repeated 6 times; 3 for each ramp amplitude.

Loki Flight 35: Right aileron ramp fault, additive. Same as the previous, except the ramp is ADDED to the controller's right aileron command (ie, the control still had use of the right aileron). 

Loki Flight 36: system ID, Rohit chirp; chirp+noise alternating between aileron and rudder. In general these looked good, though some got into a spiral. 6 repeats. Noted that the airspeed hold controller caused some large, slow pitch oscillations.

Loki Flight 37: system ID, Rohit noise; white noise signal alternating between aileron and rudder. 6 repeats.

Loki Flight 38: pitch-yaw-roll doublet; alternates between a 1 second and 1.5 second period. Amplitudes were 3 deg, 2 deg, and 4 deg, respectively. 0.5 seconds between elevator and rudder doublet; once second between rudder and aileron doublet. 6 repeats. One the first attempt, the software appeared to crash after the first doublet in the air (the ground station froze). We landed immediately, and attempted to offload data, but were not successful, indicating the program had crashed. We restarted the program and completed the flight successfully.

Loki Flight 39: system ID, Andrei elevator; alternates between a low-frequency multi-sine (0.1Hz, 0.15Hz, 0.2Hz, 0.2-0.4Hz chirp) and a high-frequency chirp (0.4Hz-7.0Hz). Amplitudes were +/- 5deg. 6 repeats. Again on this flight, the software crashed after two engagements in the air. We landed, reloaded the software, and completed the flight successfully.

Loki Flight 40: system ID, Arda aileron-rudder; alternates a high-frequency chirp (0.1Hz-7.0Hz) between the aileron and rudder. Amplitudes were +/- 4deg on the rudder and +/- 5deg on the aileron. 6 repeats.

Loki Flight 41: system ID, Rohit 2-1-1 doublet; alternates a 2-1-1 doublet between the aileron and the rudder. Rudder had good response, but the aileron didn't produce much effect.

Loki Flight 42: system ID, Rohit doublet; alternates a regular doublet between the aileron and the rudder. Some of these entered a spiral.


Issues:
1. Programs crashing: hard to pinpoint a cause here. Could be related to the absolute pressure sensor?
2. Absolute pressure sensor: occasionally initializes to -2000 meters. This has happened before, but seemed to more frequent today. Cycling power and restarting the program several times until it initializes properly seems to work.
3. Ground Station software would occasionally freeze and then be momentarily jumbled. Similar to what we observed in PIL sims today.
4. Note the GPS checksum error is still happening occasionally (ticket:22).

Back to FlightReports