Glider

About

If you have ever seen a bird gliding in the wind, that is exactly what this project is trying to emulate. The world record flight time for a two-seat glider is over 70 hours set in 1961 in Hawaii. This record has not been beaten because it is seen as being a pointless and dangerous challenge. Alpine swifts can fly for 6 months at a time without landing in fact.

So it is not too crazy to imagine building an autonomous glider that can remain airborne for large periods of time. To do this, a stable control system and suite of algorithms is required.

Timeline

• Glider conversion

  Mar 20, 2020

  I bought a hand thrown glider for €5 in Lidl. The first thing to do was to put a motor and servos on it. Initially it would be controlled using my stock RC controller and receiver.

• Motor control and sensors

  May 5, 2020

  There are two roll servos, one pitch servo, one yaw servo and a propeller BLDC. There will also be a 9DOF IMU, altitude barometer, windspeed sensor, GPS, and RC receiver.

• Final electronics

  Jun 26, 2020

  The final board for testing will place an ESP32 inbetween the RC receiver and the motors so that PID control and more complex controllers can be implemented.

• Web interface / datalogging

  Aug 20, 2020

  PID controllers will be implemented for each of the axes for simpler intial controls and some level of automation.

  Related Posts:

  • web-interface-working

• Control system

  Sep 25, 2020

  One of the goals of this project is to create a robust control system that can withstand imbalance in the plane, gusts of wind, stalling and the ability to take tight turns. PID controllers are the first initial starting point, but many changes will be necessary.

Updates

• Web Interface Working

  Sep 3, 2020

  Flight test report Tuesday 1.9.2020 11:26 Positives: New access point web interface worked very well All parameters worked It wasn’t wet :D Airspeed works and appears to be altitude agnostic (shortlived flights don’t give good data) Negatives: The plane kept leaning left Integral barely helped any leaning Integrated while in my hand Plane seems to be balanced (at least very roughly) The plane either nose-dived or stalled Oscillation occured during flights Gusts of wind caused plane to go out of control Summary The actual web interface for the plane is working very very well.…