Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!news.ssc.gov!jsmith.ssc.gov!user
From: smith@rosebud.ssc.gov (Jeffrey O. Smith)
Subject: Re: Flying Robots
Message-ID: <smith-011093102539@jsmith.ssc.gov>
Followup-To: comp.robotics
Sender: usenet@news.ssc.gov
Nntp-Posting-Host: jsmith.ssc.gov
Organization:  UTA & SSC Labs
References: <1993Sep10.090403.1@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 15:23:34 GMT
Lines: 121

In article <1993Sep10.090403.1@uwovax.uwo.ca>, lgardi@uwovax.uwo.ca wrote:
> 
> I read some stuff a while back in comp.robotics about a flying robot
> competition. There were some postings describing specific robots. 
> I extracted these postings but seemed to have 'misplaced' them. I am interested
> in hearing more about your flying robot experiences. Please post to this
> group or email to me specifically.
> Have a great day!!!
> LORI
> -- 
> <<<RED FISHY WINS>>>
> 
> Lori Gardi	                            
> Interesting World Technology
> 481 Central Ave.
> London, ONT. N6B 2G2
> LGARDI@UWOVAX.UWO.CA

In article <1993Sep10.090403.1@uwovax.uwo.ca>, you wrote:
> 
> I read some stuff a while back in comp.robotics about a flying robot
> competition. There were some postings describing specific robots. 
> I extracted these postings but seemed to have 'misplaced' them. I am interested
> in hearing more about your flying robot experiences. Please post to this
> group or email to me specifically.
> Have a great day!!!
> LORI
> -- 
> <<<RED FISHY WINS>>>
> 
> Lori Gardi	                            
> Interesting World Technology
> 481 Central Ave.
> London, ONT. N6B 2G2
> LGARDI@UWOVAX.UWO.CA

Lori:
I have worked on UTA's entry into the AUVS(Association for Unmanned Vehicle
Systems) Aerial Robot Competition since the first competition three years
ago. Our team has been very successful. We are now working on our fourth
tailsitter airplane design. Our philosophy toward the competition is a bit
different than the other teams. Most of the other teams work on controlling
off-the-shelf RC helicopters. 

A bit of background into the AUVS and its purpose:

The AUVS was incepted to promote the exchange of technology in unmanned
(unpersonned?) vehicle technology. This includes underwater, land, and
aerial. The competition (there is a ground and aerial competition this
year) is used to promote industry/university cooperation and allow college
students the opportunity to work on a real world problem.

The DOD and others are very interested in this technology for obvious
reasons. They have seperated the aerial research $$ into short range, near
range and far range capabilities. Off the cuff ( I dont have the RFP #'s in
front of me) the short range are primarily hover capabilities with little
or no runway and very little range capability (i.e. helicopters). The long
range requirements are many hours (24) and long range reconnaisance (i.e.
airplane/glider). The near range is the most interesting to us. It requires
fairly long range and hover capabilities. Hence our design which is a
tailsitter airplane based on an engine of the V22. It has the capability to
take off, hover and land like a helicopter, but also fly at about 100 mph.
(  the control problem for transitioning this 6DOF beast between hover and
airplane flight is rough and this is what myself CSE Phd Candidate and a
compadre ME PhD candidate do).
The following article may give some insight into our design and the
competition. If others are interested, I would be happy to post more
information. If I could post video I would. Some of it reminds me of the
old B&W movies of those crazy flying machines before the Wright brothers
et. al.. Our motto is "We crash autonomously".

- sincerely
Jeff Smith
Computer/Communications weenie
Superconduction Super Collider Labs
Waxahachie, Texas
smith@rosebud.ssc.gov

A group of students from The University of Texas at Arlington recently won
third place in the 1993 AUVS International Aerial Robotics Competition.

The problem: design a completely autonomous flying robot that would
retrieve six disks in a six-foot diameter ring one at a time, fly each disk
over a three foot high wall and deposit each in another target ring.

Although 24 teams accepted the challenge, only six made it to the
competition at Georgia Tech on June 25.  M.I.T., University of Ohio -
Dayton, Georgia Tech, San Diego State, and The U.S. Naval Academy  entered
helicopters, Navy had a blimp as a second vehicle, and U.T.A. entered a
third revision of its 1991 tail-sitter, Vertical Take-Off and Landing
(VTOL) craft.

M.I.T. declined to compete, the  University of Ohio - Dayton vehicle had
mechanical and electrical difficulties and could not take off, Navy and San
Diego State had difficulty with the automatic control system on their
helicopters, the Navy blimp showed some promise in take-off, hover and
landing, U.T.As vehicle took off a  number of times flew and landed
autonomously, but had trouble with its navigation system, and Georgia
Techs helicopter took off navigated toward the ring and landed
autonomously. Although the task was not  completed the competition was
considered a success.


The UTA design has evolved from the 1991 winning entry. The  1993 vehicle
named ACME was designed and constructed by 10 students from the Aerospace,
Computer, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering departments.

The craft is powered by a Quadra, 9hp 2 cycle engine providing 50 pounds of
thrust for the 37 pound vehicle. Four lower, and four upper full flying
control surfaces provide lift and thrust vectoring to maneuver the vehicle
around the competition arena with a constant attitude. An on-board KVH
flux-gate compass provides heading information. Polaroid ultrasonic
transducers provide altitude. On-board clinometer, roll, pitch and yaw
gyros, and 3-axis accelerometers provide inertial information to the
control computer. The on-board control computer is a 16.67 Mhz Motorola
MC68332 with MC68882 math co-processor, 2mb of RAM and 128k bytes of ROM.
An on-board CCD camera transmits a video  image to a ground based
frame-rate video processing system which performs disk detection and fine
navigation commands. (note..this year we are  working on many new
technologies including Echelon LonWorks distributed pprocessing a prototype
has already been developed)
