Flight controller modifications
I spent 5 hours today refining the flight controller. The program now calibrates the accelerometer and gyro offset voltages every time it is run. This makes a big difference in reducing errors. Now all of the inertial sensors seem to be working well. I added an online calibration routine for the airspeed sensor as well. It will calibrate itself based on GPS speed. This will not really be an actual airspeed unless there is no wind. It will give a good interpolation of GPS speeds, though. Also, it is a local linear approximation for airspeed. I need to go back and modify it so that it actually calculates the unknown constants in a simple pitot equation. If I combine the airspeed calibration information with that of the atlimeter calibration, I can calculate temperature. Knowing temperature, I could, if i wanted to, calibrate the thermistor.
I need to verify which way I need to orient the X-Y plane IR sensors to work with my coordinate system. I also need to do ground testing to verify the controller gains I’m using so far. I should do this outside, since there isn’t a correct thermal contrast in my room to use the IR sensors.
The flight controller is at least able to run the servos. That is a start.
Only one week until the presentation.