Since December 2018, Wuming Innovation TI flight control has served a total of more than 400 electronic competition aircraft student teams in universities across the country. Wuming Innovation TI series products have completed software and hardware iterative upgrades based on customer feedback and market demand. The competition is approaching In response to recent customers’ concerns about whether they can directly use the finished TI flight control development board and the TI complete machine secondary development learning platform for the competition, the following are several possible situations raised by the customer. Before starting the discussion, we will list The requirements for the competition questions of the aircraft competition in the previous two years.
2017 National Tournament 1. Quad-rotor autonomous vehicle detection and tracking system (Renesas Cup National Tournament)
2014 TI Cup University Student Electronic Design Contest Sichuan Province Questions-Question A Quadcopter
2018 TI Cup College Student Electronic Design Competition Questions-Fire Fighting Aircraft (TI Provincial Competition)
Based on the above-mentioned signals, we listed the following points, the questions that customers discussed extensively, and gave logical answers.
Question: 1. Is there always an aircraft group for the control questions of the electric competition?
Answer: Yes, the electric competition aircraft group belongs to the regular group. Since the 2013 electric competition aircraft problem was set in the control group, there has been no interruption in the national or provincial competitions. This year, the organizing committee will organize relevant technical personnel to hold aircraft training conferences across the country. The homepage of the eSports training official website mainly promotes eSports UAV online training courses. If there is no aircraft problem in this year's TI electric competition control group, the organizing committee does not need to waste money, waste national power, and add congestion to everyone. (Related materials are as follows)
2. In the electronic competition control group, is TI required to process the main control platform? If the processor is limited, does the control group have to include the aircraft competition questions?
Answer: Yes, according to the official notice, at least one of the 2019 TI Cup National College Student Electronic Design Competition will be designated to use TI processors, including but not limited to MSP430 series, MSP432 series, Tiva Cortex-M4 series and C2000 series . According to the chip tutorial on the official training website of the electric competition, there is a re-introduction of the resources needed for the flight control, as well as the previous TI provincial competition aircraft processor limited TI platform. According to the above logic, the 2019 TI national competition control group The aircraft processing chip is limited to use TI processors to basically be able to sit down (99.999999%+).
2014 TI provincial competition aircraft requirements
2018 TI provincial competition aircraft requirements
3. The electronic racing aircraft platform is limited to the TI processor platform. Which part of the content is processed by the TI chip, and can it contain other manufacturers’ processor platforms, mainly the drone vision processing part, optical flow module, etc.?
Answer: According to the requirements of the previous TI provincial competitions, the attitude detection and flight control of the aircraft must use TI's processor. The evaluation expert needs to judge based on the circuit board that the TI processor truly handles the attitude detection and aircraft control. First of all, although attitude detection and flight control are short, the actual meaning is very rich. First of all, attitude detection. With the development of MEMS technology, the current aircraft attitude sensors are rarely seen in the analog accelerometers and analog gyroscopes of the early model aircraft era. The mainstream attitude sensors and processors adopt digital communication methods, such as SPI and I2C. For a single common inertial sensor, such as MPU6050, ICM20689, etc., the MPU series is solved by a built-in DMP (digital motion processor). Users can still use digital communication to directly obtain the attitude quaternion, initialize the sampling rate and range , Calibrate the acceleration zero position. After turning on the DMP, the MPU will automatically complete the acceleration and gyroscope (magnetometer optional) quaternion attitude fusion process. The external processor can directly obtain the attitude quaternion through the MPU6050 built-in DMP function mpu_read_fifo function After obtaining the attitude quaternion, the corresponding relationship between the quaternion rotation matrix and the direction cosine matrix, and the trigonometric function calculation can obtain the attitude data. If the TI processor uses the DMP reading method to obtain the MPU6050 attitude sensor data and finally get the attitude feedback data for aircraft control. Obviously, this must belong to the scope required by the organizing committee-using TI processors to process aircraft attitude detection. Although the processor only performs initial configuration, digital communication obtains the attitude quaternion, and the inverse trigonometric operation obtains the attitude feedback. The TI processor eliminates the need for the DMP digital inertial sensor without the need to update the DCM/quaternion process outside the TI processor. The reason for making the above statement is for the need to elicit the complicated actual situation. Let’s take a look at the posture measurement modules available on the market. Let’s go to Jack Ma’s home to search for: posture measurement. The results are as follows
The low-cost posture measurement modules available on the market are given above. The measurement modules come with accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, barometers, etc. The finished attitude measurement module is equipped with processors from other manufacturers, most of which are products of ST and Nuvoton. The external processor can directly obtain the attitude angle, height, and speed information of the attitude measurement module, with rich interfaces: serial port, CAN, SPI, I2C, etc. Obviously this goes against the organizing committee’s principle that the competition group must use TI processors for attitude detection. For attitude detection, for attitude detection, the flight controller does not need to do anything, and the serial communication can be resolved to the relevant The processed data output by the IMU/INS fusion algorithm developed by the manufacturer is used for aircraft attitude control.
Some people may have questions here, why the MPU series DMP can be used, but not with these finished attitude measurement modules. The same is the sensor detection module. The reason is very simple. Going back to the initial TI electronic competition requirements, the hardware board circuit of the flight control board needs to be convenient for reviewers to see that the chip does handle the posture detection part. From the hardware point of view, the TI processor It needs to be directly connected to the MEMS digital sensor signal, not like the external attitude detection. The TI processor is not directly connected to the MEMS, but indirectly obtains the processor ST and Nuvoton from other manufacturers through digital communication. Process the fused posture data.
There is a possibility to mislead the expert review. The flight control hardware comes with a separate MEMS digital sensor, which has actual hardware connections. Due to other functional requirements, the module must be connected to MEMS sensors, such as lidar and visual inertial odometer. This situation is currently difficult to explain clearly to the review experts. The posture detection is done by the TI processor itself or comes from external module communication. Because of the complexity of the actual situation we discussed above, the organizing committee has not considered In addition, when there are other modules to choose from, it is not recommended to take risks, unless you can ensure that you can explain it to competitors and judges, which is actually difficult! ! !
Then back to the issue of TI processor limitation. The organizing committee only limited the TI chip to handle the posture detection part, and did not limit the height detection and speed detection. In addition, the existing height detection modules, such as HCSR04 and US100, use Nuvoton or STM8 processors to process the echo data of ultrasonic probes. The laser ranging sensor TFMINI uses the STM32F0 processor. The optical flow sensor LC306 is also superior to itself. Image processor. The visual part OPENMV, Raspberry Pi, Jetson, TX2, K210, etc. are all processors from other manufacturers. (The posture detection and combing stop here, there are too many to talk about, I am afraid that I can't finish it, and I need to wash a peach and eat).
Flight control is also very short. What does it mean? Control refers to the use of control algorithms to achieve position, speed, and attitude control in three-dimensional space after the integrated navigation system obtains attitude, position, speed, and acceleration feedback. Call this part motion control. For the aircraft competition, we need to combine the visual processing module to complete specific functions. This part is called the control of the decision-making layer. It involves trajectory tracking, waypoint traversal, constant speed cruise, forward looking crossing, etc. The mission process also requires sound, Logical hint of light.
4. The official evaluation version of the last Renesas National Tournament must be used. Can the TI National Tournament also only use the Launchpad evaluation version? Can we directly use your finished flight control and complete machine for the competition? Can the flight controller with its own school and team name logo be used?
Answer: According to the aircraft requirements of the last TI provincial competition, the aircraft can be self-made or purchased, which means that the organizing committee allows the use of finished aircraft for the competition, and only purchases the finished flight controller. It is certainly allowed to make the entire aircraft platform by yourself. As for the flight control part, With the Launchpad evaluation board and the independently designed flight controller, the organizing committee has no reason not to allow everyone to participate.
I personally guess that the current electronic competition aircraft questions take into account the actual level and the actual participation status of the competition. There is no limit to the finished aircraft in order to encourage more people to participate, train more engineers in the drone industry, and wait until everyone's overall strength After getting up, inherit and help, accumulate relevant experience, similar to the NXP smart car competition, restricting self-designed flight control, unifying the competition model, naturally it will be a matter of course. Now at this time, restricting self-designed flight control is definitely a wailing, unrealistic Happening. Everyone has matured skills, and it is not impossible for the electric competition specialist group to set up aircraft competition questions. Below is a photo of an unnamed innovative customer making wheels and designing a flight control independently.
Brother Wheel No. 1
Brother Wheel 2
Brother Wheel No. 3
Brother Wheel No. 4
Brother Wheel No. 5
Brother Wheel No. 6
Up to now, TIVA flight control has served more than 400 e-sports student teams. Everyone is encouraged to build their own wheels. According to incomplete statistics, after learning, there are about 30 groups that independently design flight control by themselves. Most learners have plans to design a flight controller, limited to the current tight learning tasks, lack of hardware experience, and limited personal experience in single-handed combat. For the time being, they have not designed a flight controller independently. Design after the competition.
Finally, for the unsuccessful domestic colleague who has been sending the navy black and nameless to innovate, he made a mockery of his furious self-slapped public relations behavior the day before yesterday:
Introduction: We released the new MSP432 version of the flight controller, open sourced the optical flow inertial navigation integration solution, and posted photos in our own technical exchange group. Some people asked whether the new MSP432 was not allowed to use TM4C in the competition. I would reply as long as it was yes. TI chips can be used. By the way, I remind students who independently design flight controllers not to buy refurbished chips with unclear silk screens. Taking into account the requirements of the competition, the TI master controller must handle the attitude detection part independently. It is recommended not to use other coprocessors. Do not have IMU parts, such as attitude detection modules with Nuvoton, ST, visual inertial odometer, etc., otherwise it is difficult to explain to the review experts. As a result, someone replied that the anonymous ST with IMU and highly-detected optical flow could not be used? Considering that the subsequent reply would cause unnecessary misunderstandings, and at the same time, it would increase the hostility of the other party to us, so we did not reply.
As a result, something dramatic happened. Just in the evening when the team was meeting here, a client from his communication group sent one of their announcements to a colleague. The content of the announcement is as follows:
@All members Recently, some people reported that other businesses called names and said that anonymous optical flow sensors could not be used because there is an IMU on the optical flow.
Why can the purchased imu code be used? Can't tell if the module I bought comes with imu? Does the 6050 and other built-in dmp posture solution say clear?
If the organizing committee restricts you from using modules to bring imu, it just wants you to do the posture calculation by yourself, then you see the situation is now, TI open source a large number of flight controllers, does it make sense to require this?
And from the topic of recent years, the focus has been on the upper-level control functions such as visual recognition and navigation control. The lower-level control of the flight control may not be the focus of the investigation in the future. In many years, the electric competition does not even limit what you use. Flight control.
Before the rules came out, there were all kinds of possibilities, even questions without airplanes were completely possible. Therefore, don't believe in some one-sided words, and analyze them objectively.
The anonymous science and technology team announced:
1: Full-open source optical flow fusion and optical flow fixed-point source code will be launched this weekend to eliminate the worries of anonymous users. Students who are worried that they cannot use anonymous optical flow can directly use the original optical flow sensor Youxiang lc30x module, which is fused and rotated by the flight controller Decoupling, fixed-point calculation.
2: All functions of the flight control are fully open source, and all C language source code forms are provided, no assembly, no lib, and no non-open source forms for everyone to transplant and learn.
3: All buyers who have successfully traded on the TI version can get it for free after the weekend source code is released.
4: Can't users of the old version of STM32 version of Topspace PRO users enjoy it? It does not exist, because the competition is approaching, first take care of TI participating users, first launch the TI version of open source optical flow fusion, and wait for the corresponding source code of the STM32 version of the TOKOPRO PRO to be released after the game.
5: Anonymous Optical Flow V3 has recently updated its firmware to improve optical flow performance. I believe that students who use the finished optical flow will not be banned from the competition, and a better fixed-point hovering effect can be obtained.
The above two pictures show the same person, a student from a university in Wuhan. The Wangwang ID and QQ are the same person, and Shuijun No. 1 appears.
I said no, but my body was very honest. Dramatic things happened. Everyone pays attention to the previous picture. In order to let everyone see the problem clearly, it is the same person who caused the problem and the crazy blowing water underneath. Number appears.
Life is like a play, it all depends on acting, hello, goodbye, goodbye! ! !
