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What I do is a mix of algorithm development and practical work.
Although some of the work we do is theory, we also
like to put a big emphasis on specific test stands
that are of industrial relevance.
The recent research has focussed on autonomous helicopter.
So this is our outdoor helicopter. And we've basically modified
this RC helicopter in a number of ways. So the avionics
system provides an embedded computer and a bunch of
sensors, including gyros, accelerometers, GPS,
magnetometer. And these sensors are key for the
system to be able to sense its configuration.
So what we have now is we have it in manual mode, and
the sticks directly influence the swashplate, which
then controls the orientation of the helicopter. And so if
I flick a switch here, then it'll turn it into computer-controlled mode.
And now you can see that, when I orient the helicopter, the
swashplate reacts on its own without having the pilot
having to do anything. So it if moves to the right, then
the swashplate will orient in an appropriate direction
to provide the torque to restore the hover configuration.
what we're seeing are trajectories of the so-called roll and pitch angles.
So you can see the trajectories being logged here on the screen.
So this is going to sit on the ground and there's
a radio link including Wi-Fi linked to the
base station that we've got set up right now.
and being able to - interact with the helicopter, provide
it reference signals and so on and keep track of the pilot controls.
These are all key components to the autopilot system.