Re: [Paparazzi-devel] Flight Plan for Soaring

[Reto Büttner]

Hi guys,

autonomous soaring is obviously a subject that is on many peoples mind!

I like the idea of doing the processing in the ground station similar
to wind estimation. I also like the idea of using total energy varios.
Using an additional board on the UAV is to complex for me.

In a first step I head for a really simple approach. It is not my goal
to beat a manual glider pilot. It is also not my goal to be able to
stay aloft in minimal thermal conditions. I am happy to autonomously
stay aloft in good thermal conditions. Therefore firstly no data
processing in the ground station and no total energy varios.

I guess just by memorizing and processing the last circle centering a
thermal should be possible. That should be solvable on the LPC2148.
Additionally memorize a couple of waypoints where thermals have been
found and there we go :-)

As nobody really seems to have solved autonomous soaring on paparazzi
before, I will dig deeper into the code ...

Cheers, Reto

2011/2/28 Todd Sandercock <address@hidden>:
> Would definitely help I am sure. An ETS altimeter and airspeed sensor would
> give enough data to do total energy calcs which in theory would be perfect
> for thermalling..
> Paparazzi should be able to perform the simple methods a glider pilot uses
> to thermal quite easily. Just transferring those mind algorithms and
> instincts to code is a bit tougher.. haha
> ________________________________
> From: Chris Gough <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Sent: Mon, 28 February, 2011 10:20:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [Paparazzi-devel] Flight Plan for Soaring
>
> Hi Todd
>
> re: total energy vario. Given an uncorrected vario (e.g. ETS module),
> couldn't the AP correct it in software by incorporating the airspeed
> estimate (or measured airspeed, if available)? I realise that's not
> sufficient for thermalling, but might be useful for other things (like
> tuning for efficiency).
>
> Chris Gough
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Todd Sandercock
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>> I was thinking a piggyback processor telling the Tiny what to do... Also
>> the
>> piggyback processor could be collecting better air data (total energy
>> vario)
>> to make better centring decisions.
>> Todd
>> ________________________________
>> From: Marc Schwarzbach <address@hidden>
>> To: address@hidden
>> Sent: Mon, 28 February, 2011 8:37:58 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Paparazzi-devel] Flight Plan for Soaring
>>
>> Hi Reto,
>>
>> I also thought about the idea of soaring with paparazzi.
>> The Papers mentioned are quite good.
>>
>> The problem I ran into is that you have to keep the thermal field data
>> somewhere in a memory to calculate the center of the thermal. On a
>> desktop,
>> it is not a problem. The limited memory onboard is not enough for this
>> method.
>>
>> So I see two solutions (for the current Tiny autopilots):
>> -Process the Information in the ground control PC (like it´s done with the
>> wind estimation at the moment, which was probably done for the same
>> reason).
>> -Develop a new algorythm which works on the limitied power and memory of
>> the
>> autopilot (would be cool and worth a publication :-)
>>
>> Please keep us posted and ask if there are problems.
>> There seem to be some people interested...
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
>>> Datum: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:24:53 +0100
>>> Von: "Reto Büttner" <address@hidden>
>>> An: address@hidden
>>> Betreff: Re: [Paparazzi-devel] Flight Plan for Soaring
>>
>>> Hi Todd,
>>>
>>> thanks for the hints.
>>>
>>> I actually am a full scale glider pilot myself as well. So I
>>> understand the techniques of soaring thoroughly. The challenge is to
>>> get this into paparazzi as simple as possible.
>>>
>>> Dan Edwards has done a brilliant job in autonomous soaring:
>>> http://goosetech.homelinux.com/soaring/index.php
>>> Unfortunately he used piccolo of cloudcap, not paparazzi :-(
>>>
>>> I am still open to any paparazzi flight plan details!
>>>
>>> Cheers, Reto
>>>
>>> 2011/2/28 Todd Sandercock <address@hidden>:
>>> > As a glider pilot I will say now that there is a lot more to soaring
>>> than
>>> > just turning in an updraft.... You may want to do some research into
>>> thermal
>>> > centring techniques first. This link is a pretty good
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>> start: 
>>> http://jesuscondorbase.blogspot.com/2010/11/thermaling-pt2-centering-techniques.html
>>> > Also there  is a couple of papers floating around the internet from
>>> NASA
>>> > where the experiment with autonomous soaring. Very good
>>> >
>>> reference: http://dtrs.dfrc.nasa.gov/archive/00001620/01/214611-REV1.pdf
>>> > This is just a start....
>>> > Todd
>>> > ________________________________
>>> > From: Reto Büttner <address@hidden>
>>> > To: address@hidden
>>> > Sent: Mon, 28 February, 2011 9:33:22 AM
>>> > Subject: [Paparazzi-devel] Flight Plan for Soaring
>>> >
>>> > Hi guys,
>>> >
>>> > for autonomous soaring I want the plane to circle, as long as it is in
>>> > an updraft. Will a statement similar to the following work?
>>> >
>>> > <circle radius="50" until="estimator_vz < 0.0" wp="WP" throttle="0.0"
>>> > pitch="-5" vmode="throttle"/>
>>> >
>>> > Does the variable estimator_vz exist?
>>> >
>>> > Has someone in the paparazzi community already programmed a flight
>>> > plan for autonomous soaring?
>>> >
>>> > Cheers,
>>> > Reto
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Paparazzi-devel mailing list
>>> > address@hidden
>>> > http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/paparazzi-devel
>>> >
>>> >
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>>> >
>>>
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