At the start of this week (Sunday), we finalized our Gantt Chart and schedule. On Monday, we presented our proposal. We got some feedback from Professor Savvides that we should use a computer with more cores than the Jetson Nano . Since we owned a Jetson TX1 which has a 256-core GPU vs the 128-core GPU on Nano, we decided to switch to the TX1.
After this, we broke up the components of our design and assigned each team member certain parts and components to research for ordering. This breakdown was performed in the “Design Research” document in the shared folder. Finally, after each member had researched the desired components, we compiled all the components we need along with their provider and cost in the “Bill of Materials” sheet within the shared folder. In addition to this, we tested the drone simulation and flight controller API along with making sure the Raspberry Pi could send messages through ROS via WiFi. We also set up Solidworks for CAD design.
For next week, we will first order all the components labelled “ASAP” by Tuesday so that we can hopefully receive them from Quinn by the end of the week. In addition to this, we will set up the TX1 and start programming it, working on color filtering and blob detection using the TX1’s built-in camera and researching methods for target state estimation. In addition, we will create scripts that convey simple motion commands to the drone and test if it works in simulation. We will also test the bandwidth limitations of streaming video from a Raspberry Pi to a laptop over WiFi. Finally, we will begin the CAD process for the housing for our various parts.