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bhunt2 / QC1.0

Design, documentation, and code for our first quadcopter
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Communication with Flight Controller #12

Closed sabmah closed 8 years ago

sabmah commented 8 years ago

We have a question regarding the design choice on communicating with flight controller from Edison. Below are two choices we came up with.

We don't know which case would be harder to implement but looking at pros and cons for both Case 2 would be ideal. Do you have any input or preference on this design choice?

Case 1:

Case 2:

bhunt2 commented 8 years ago

I am a little frustrated in seeing this. I do apologize that I didn't get to this until now, but I asked for documentation regarding these things weeks ago.

I thought I was pretty specific about it in both our meetings and email messages. Each of your options should be documented in the wiki giving basic pros and cons of each. Then, some discussion about integration and variations. Finally, a section that gives what the design choice is and why it was chosen over the others.

Since I have not seen this for the flight controller / Edison, I will not give my input yet. This question is a good start in a discussion about integration of components for control and what the drone really needs.

Your issue as it is written, just gives me a choice, but does not tell me anything about either choice except to choose a set of components. I have never thought about either of these options, so I would need to research these options before I could make a decision.

I know there are a lot of options out there and I supplied you with many of them in the wiki, but if you look at what I gave you in the kit you will see what I personally decided on. That should at least give you a couple of ideas for options. I have one question for you that is also a strong suggestion to think about. Why aren't you using the Edison alone with the breakouts? I am not saying you have to, but consider it and provide everyone with your thoughts.

sabmah commented 8 years ago

IT IS documented on wiki here https://github.com/bhunt2/QC1.0/wiki/Communicating-With-Flight-Controller granted that it lacks little details.

sabmah commented 8 years ago

From this documentation (http://www.multiwii.com/wiki/index.php?title=Multiwii_Serial_Protocol) it looked like flight controller can process these commands. I thought we just have to send this command over the line via UARTs to the flight controller. There is a transceiver provided which would be my second choice and communicate with flight controller's receiver. But I thought it would be harder to implement transceiver than two simple wires.

bhunt2 commented 8 years ago

@sabmah @Kekahuna @hautruong36 I took a look at your new documentation. I am not sure if it is complete, but it is going in the right direction. I know that you are busy and I am grateful you took the time to make this happen. It will help everyone understand your work and how you are doing on your tasks.

One concern that I did not see expressed in your documentation is about voltage differences between devices. The Edison native I/O voltage is 1.8V, but the Flip 1.5 is at 3.3V or 5V. How do you plan to deal with this? Is there something about the Flip 1.5 that I do not see in its documenation? This seems to be the option that you are planning on going with, so this is definitely something that needs to be documented and dealt with appropriately.

The same issue would be present if you were to use the transceivers. I do believe the transceiver is easier than you think, but again you would be dealing with voltage level differences and it is isn't really an ideal option as it wouldn't make sense to wireless communicate between two devices that are adjacent to each other.

There are a couple of options that are not documented that do not have this issue and could possibly be much easier than other options you have come up with. I believe that they are options that should be highly considered. I have hinted about them in my other messages and comments. I will give you a day or two to see what you come up with before I just give them to you.

I am eager to see what you guys think up. As this is a major design decision and is one that needs to be completed sooner rather than later, please work together and make a decision, document it and let me know so I can review it before the meeting this Friday.

sabmah commented 8 years ago

I added another approach - I2C which is provided.

bhunt2 commented 8 years ago

@sabmah @Kekahuna @hautruong36

Keep the ideas coming. The other options should be updated appropriately to document the issues that I mentioned. Also, you should give additional information about components or equipment you would need to accomplish each of these options. This will give a full picture of what we have to work with. I suggest you review all the options as a team over the next two days. Then, we should see a final decision by the team no later than Friday morning please. This will allow Dr McNames, Michael and me to review it before the meeting Friday afternoon.

Thanks guys and keep up the good work.

bhunt2 commented 8 years ago

Thanks for starting the documentation on this and working through the issue. It looks like you guys are on the right track so I will close this issue.