Hi all! Having a little bit of trouble building out a solution for a someone specific use case and wanted to post my thoughts and experience here. I have logs buried in files somewhere, so I can find them at some point if it’s helpful to provide context.
I’m building a small flying wing to be deployed from another aircraft in flight. Upon deployment, the system is transitioned into AUTO via commands from our ground control station. The deployment flow, in terms of issuing the drop command to the main aircraft, transitioning to auto, and so on, has been relatively straightforward. The aircraft is deployed, we see the expected delay built into the deployment flow, followed by a transition into AUTO. The big challenge at this point is simply that while the aircraft is in AUTO, the motor never spools up. We have no issues hand launching and transitioning mid-air, so it would appear that there is something inherent to the way in which we’re deploying the aircraft that is causing this issue. We can see the difference between desired altitude and actual altitude (we’re below where the system wants to be), we can see throttle commands issued by the controller, so I am of half a mind to say that it’s potentially a speed controller issue more than anything, but not super sure.
Hope that provides enough context. Absolutely an edge case in every sense of the word, but have been unable to get to the bottom of the issue over the last few weeks and thought I’d reach out here to see if anyone might have any thoughts.
If you can, please post a .bin log if you need to scrub location you can use MP to do so.
It sounds like your drone isn’t armed properly.
Unfortunately plane doesn’t support THROW mode and TAKEOFF is more suited for ground takeoffs in any form than drop launch.
No location concerns, just have the files a little bit buried. Will take a look later today and will upload as I find them.
We’ve been curious about arming as well. It has been a little while since I’ve dug into the logs, so I can’t speak to it off the top of my head, but I absolutely agree that it seems to be a likely cause. Only reasoning I have to doubt that this might be the source is that we have the vehicle configured to arm as soon as it is powered on and AHRS is stable, which we do on the ground prior to takeoff. Is it possible that specific flight conditions could cause the system to disarm while attached to the main aircraft prior to deployment?
We’re also using a pitot-static tube, I do know that sometimes where IMU and pitot tube data is divergent the system acts to prevent overspeeding, I wonder if we potentially could be seeing the effects of some similar phenomena?
