26 Oct

For 3D navigation systems, representing the orientation is always annoying. After going through several painful learning and debugging processes, I share some lessons that I learned. The quaterion parameterization There are several ways to represent a 3d orientation. In real system, everyone pre...

21 Oct

I have spent the past weeks assembling a blimp on which to test a feedback control system to aid in controlling the blimp as well as building said control system. The picture below shows the experimental setup. So far, the blimp is assembled and controlled based on IMU motion. The video below...

21 Oct

Specifications of the system - Blimp with 2 motors used for horizontal propagation connected to ESP32 microcontroller (Slave Device) NodeMCU with ESP 8266 acting as the master device 2.4GHz with ESP Now protocol is used for communication between the 2 devices A joystick controller is used...

21 Oct

This experiment demonstrates that by using ESP Now protocol we have the capability to control multiple blimps from a single joystick controller. We can switch between different control modes at the click of a button. In the following video - 1 ESP32 microcontroller is connected to the motors. 1...

21 Oct

Gripper definition: G1: simple gripper, no stiffener mechanisms added (failed) G2: optimized gripper, with stiffener mechanisms added (success) G3: over-weight gripper, with heavy-stiffener mechanisms added (failed) Videos: 1.a. G1, close view, clamp on bar, close 1.b. G1, whole view (wi...

19 Oct

How to customize batteries according to your requirements? It is very challenging to design a battery to satisfy specific loading. For example, you may need to have a battery that can outup certain current when connected to an electric-driven actuator with a certain resistance. Similarly, for our pr...

19 Oct

In this experiment, we want to control vertical manuver the balloon of by controlling the fins. We took the fin control part of air swimmer clownfish balloon and integrated into our system. In the following video, we showed how to improve and integrate the fin controller into our system step b...

19 Oct

It took me a while to really understand the structure of the okvis SLAM system. In order to prevent from studying its structure all over again, it is better for me to put down what I understand so far. The main goal of this post is to bridge the gap between the theoretical understanding and the so...

19 Oct

Meaning of "in-situ design": Design objects with regard to real-world reference. (not focus on fabricability in the following suggested scenarios) Content of application scenarios below: Domestic interior design: furniture External design: architecture Large-scale design: space rocket mod...

19 Oct

I have added time remaining functionality to the power consumption board that I have. However, it is not refined and therefore has a few caveats for use. The program assumes that the battery is at full charge upon program start. While there is no current through the sensor, the time remaining wi...