being lazy

I haven't been quite as productive as I would have liked. I ordered two new books, one on UAVs and another on SolidWorks. I figure I really should learn SolidWorks, and not just for this project. I'll do some light reading this week, but most of my major work will be next week. There's a lot of info in the RC groups forum that I need to sift through. I saw some nifty chassis ideas, including using one of those security camera domes as a protective top. Made it look really cool. I feel hesitant about the thin carbon fiber arms, but I know they're stronger than they look intuitively. I do like the screw locking method one person used, since it wasn't permanent, yet was strong. One person used a 4 tube interconnect as a base for the chasis. It looked a lot more stable than other methods.

In terms of my proposal, I wasn't entirely pleased with the format of the proposal so I'll probably try to reorganize it. I do need to add in a section on some mathematic models. I find it humorous that in Musial's book that he commented that several papers used the same model for controller design and simulation verification. Of course their simulation will work; they're predicting the data that they used. I notice Musial's observation to be too true. In my incomplete research survey, I've found no less than 7 such papers. Tisk tisk. I fully plan on doing more rigorous simulations for my mathematical models. Even if I'm just going to use a simple PID controller.

Anyways, back to my 'vacation'

PPT

Decided to make a powerpoint of the proposal. You know, for people who don't feel like reading a 35 page document. You can find it to the right.

so close

no introduction yet, but everything else is done. Ish. Its all a rough draft. A 34 page rough draft. It still needs work. sad face

Hungry

Up to 25 pages now. Getting closer. Not really. I'm almost done writing the components I need. But I haven't even started working on the introduction yet though. The construction process should be fairly simple though.

Slowly getting done

Still no introduction, no review of existing designs, and nothing yet on the details of my plan, but I'm almost done picking out my components. I know which motor and blades I want and what I'm going to build it out of. I just to write it up. Still thinking about the stabilization sensors. I might just use the MikroQuads set up.

Up to 18 pages now. Of course, now its starting to get populated by images and graphs. But there's still plenty of text and even more still to write.

No PDF yet, my lab computer is being screwy with the PDF maker. I'll probably have it up tonight.

Solid Works

Ok, so Solid Works isn't exactly the easiest program to figure out. All I want to do is make a very simple drawing of my quadcopter design... grumble. I may skip this section till another day when I have the time to figure this out.

Back to writing

Proposal Update

Updated the proposal. Added more details on my project plan, both for my thesis and for the quadcopter design. Up to about 13 pages right now. I am now a supporter of Word 2007 and its auto labeling, auto table of contents, auto works cited stuff. Makes everything a lot easier. Well except now that I have more things to fool around with. Started work in Solid Works so I can model the quadcopter. I should have a rough model done by Friday to add into the report.

Name?!

The planning phases of the proposal are coming along, albeit slowly. However, I've come across a major dilema. I don't have a name for it yet. This is critical. A name is everything. A rose by any other name would not smell as sweet. Its all about marketing.

Thesis Proposal

Ok, so I figured I'll always keep a copy of my Proposal up here for everyone to take a look at. Provided I figure out a way to do this easily. Its giving me fits thus far. So here's a pdf

Its a work in progress. Seriously. It really is.

Quadcopter UAV

So its time that I start working on putting my Master's Thesis into action.

• Step 1: Start telling everyone about it.
• Step 2: Start a blog so that everyone can keep track of my progress
• Step 3: Write the proposal
• Step 4: Forget to update Blog, Twitter, Facebook with my current progress
• Step 5: Make my quadcopter UAV
• Step 6: Finish Thesis

I'm now at Step 2. Work on Step 3 has begun. Expect Step 4 to start before Step 3 is completed. Who knows when I'll even reach Step 5. My due date to finish Step 6 is in less than a year. We'll see how that goes.