On Friday, January 15, 2021, UCR-UAS successfully conducted the first full flight of our Polaris prototype vehicle! Piloted by one of our Project Coordinators and the lead of our UAV Team, this flight marks the first time that UCR-UAS has built and flown a fully-custom airframe. Watch the full flight here!! At 9:26 AM PST, the Polaris took off on its maiden flight, on a quest to prove its flight-worthiness after encountering failures during the previous two attempts. With a new, all-metal structure and fresh batteries, the Polaris accelerated down the runway and soared into the air, rapidly gaining altitude while battling strong winds. Turning downwind parallel to the runway, the Polaris continued on its inaugural flight and accelerated as it leveled off. Coming back around and overflying the runway, the Polaris slowed down as its pilot made a quick visual inspection for any structural fatigue or missing components. With its airframe in perfect condition, the aircraft made one more circuit before approaching the runway in a strong crosswind and coming in for a firm but successful landing. Ready for takeoff on a cool, clear winter morning This test flight was a critical milestone in the development process of our Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, as it verified the flight-worthiness of this design. With this knowledge, the UAV team is now moving on to utilizing the Polaris to conduct flight tests that will aid in the development of the autopilot and computer vision programs, as well as embarking on the next major development stage: constructing the Borealis, our full-scale prototype.
Next up: The Borealis, Polaris VTOL Implementation Until then, The UCR-UAS Team
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During Fall quarter 2020, our Antenna & Gimble Lead, Jonathan Tsai, hosted a series of SolidWorks Workshops to help anyone learn about the basics of this software. Here are the links to our past recorded workshops! 11/14/2020 SolidWorks Workshop - Tools Pt. 2 11/20/2020 SolidWorks Workshop - SolidWorks Specialties 11/29/2020 SolidWorks Workshop - SolidWorks Tools, Fluids, Material Properties On September 30th, our Polaris Test Vehicle attempted its first flight! Polaris takes off! After a month of construction, the Polaris Test Vehicle was finally ready to take to the skies! Constructed mostly out of wood and foamboard, this economical vehicle will provide us with the ability to test our flight hardware and software before moving on to the full-scale competition aircraft. 3D-Printed Winglet By being a half-scale prototype derived directly from the CAD design of the Aurora, the Polaris aims to give us a preliminary representation of the Aurora's general flight characteristics while still being at a scale that is small enough to be easily constructed and transported. Side-cutaway view of the Aurora design Stabilizer Servo Array Covering the fuselage FliteTest Power Pack C Powerplant The Polaris took off from Riverside Radio Control Club at slightly past noon. However, the timing for this flight ultimately was problematic, as the intense 107 degree heat on this day caused the 3D-printed components to melt and for the hot-glue holding the aircraft together to become slightly malleable. This, combined with an over-flexible wing spar, caused the Polaris' wings to over-flex and ultimately resulted in a crash. Moments before impact Wreckage after the crash While the damage looks rather significant, the aircraft is actually repairable and will hopefully fly once again shortly! Among the list of repairs and improvements are replacement aluminum wing spars, new 3D-printed parts, and implementation of VTOL capabilities. Next up: Polaris VTOL tests Till then,
The UCR-UAS team On July 26, we had our first foamie flights of the year! Redesigned from last year's foamie, this new aircraft is the perfect practice vehicle for our safety pilot as well as a testbed for our flight hardware. Our brand new foamie Running on a 3S 2200mAh battery, the foamie has more than enough power to execute complex aerobatics. Or, a 2S 10000mAh battery can be used instead, giving us over 10 minutes of flight time! Ready for takeoff Liftoff! Cruising by With its high-wing design and plenty of power, this plane is a breeze to fly and is extremely stable, making it perfect for a training and testbed aircraft. However, when put into the hands of an adventurous pilot, the foamie is more than happy to become an extremely maneuverable and aerobatic aircraft. Testing aerial imagery With our Compute Vision team making headway in their object detection and classification (ODCL) program, we strapped on an inexpensive action camera and shot some air-to-ground footage for the CV team to use as a test sample. Of course, our competition camera will be of better quality, but for now this is sufficient! Onboard Footage Take a seat in the cockpit of our foamie and ride along on one of our test flights! While the flight is turbulent at times due to windy conditions, calmer weather and further practice will be surely lead to even smoother flights in the future. Smooth and safe touchdown! With the foamie having proven its effectiveness as an early test vehicle, we are thrilled to have had our first flights of the year! Next Up: a scale prototype of our Aurora UAV and autonomous flights! Till then,
The UCR-UAS team Hello Everyone,
Due to the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of UCR-UAS project will be conducted online only. Tasks that require in-person meetings will be postponed until further notice. Please contact your sub-project leads for meeting times and more detailed updates. Hope everyone has a safe summer, The UCR-UAS Team Once again, thank you everyone who came to yesterday's general meeting. We had a ton of fun playing Kahoot, debating amongst one another on whether or not you can cry underwater, and so on.
Here's some quick updates from the general meeting:
To end, we wish you all good luck on your midterms! Hang on there, the quarter is almost done! We will soon be posting about testing once all of our parts come in. Thanks for being so patient with us. Til next time, - UCR-UAS team UCR-UAS finally had our first flight day of the quarter on December 14. We would like to thank everyone who came, especially since it occurred right after the last day of finals. Here's just some updates from what happened that day Setting up the GPS Checking for balance We unfortunately ran into a multitude of problems. Problems arose one after another while setting up, especially when it came to calibrating. We also had to wait for the rain to subside for a bit before going out into the field; however, the problems did not end there. Reattaching Servo linkage Before flying, we discovered that one of servos was not attached correctly, causing an even further delay. On top of that, we had issues regarding the autopilot not working functionally, causing us to divert to a manual flight. In the end, despite our efforts, our plane suffered an unfortunate fate. Our plane ended up crashing upon liftoff, causing the landing gear to completely rip apart. Despite this, we learned a lot about our current design. Now we are currently planning the following things:
There are more small stuff that we need to address but for now those are the main, major focuses. We are now re-building and focused on testing again in January. More updates to come and we will announce our next flight day once a date is set. Have a wonderful Winter Break everyone and Happy Holidays! - UCR-UAS Team Good news! The UGV team has finished the CAD of the first design iteration and is currently moving onto building a prototype. Most parts have been 3D printed and we're looking into buying parts to finish up creating the prototype.
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