Blog post #2 from Centre for Autonomous Systems (CAS) PhD student Janindu Sithumini Arukgoda, embedded in Team VICTOR, the Virginia Tech Grand Challenge entry for the 2017 Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC)
We have less than two weeks to go before we pack up and leave Virginia Tech for MBZIRC 2017 in Abu Dhabi - everyone here is so busy!
The software is almost fully completed and we are conducting several field tests each week. Challenge 2 and 3 teams are continuously improving our perception, localisation, control and overall system integration as well as hardware, and will test the grand challenge scenario very soon.
In terms of how successful our tests are, our pilot considers every day we don't crash a good day!
Since a crash in November, our UAVs haven’t given us any further trouble flying (fingers crossed!). Each time we test, we identify what's going wrong, go back to the drawing board and solve the problems. Right now, more focus is on bringing individual components together and integrating them.
This involves the 'dungeon sessions' - the whole team gets together in a lab and nobody leaves until we figure out the problem and solve it. Sometimes we pull all-nighters as the time we have left is getting shorter very quickly.
Ideally, it's a good thing to learn from fellow competitors and maybe try out their approaches to see if they are better. But right now we have a consolidated approach to all three challenges and we don't need any complications – so we are focused on our approach. We’ll know how it goes in good time!
I'm flying to Abu Dhabi ahead of the other team members and will meet them there. We begin preliminary tests on the actual competition field from 11 March.
Just when I feel that I have finally settled down in Blacksburg, it's time to leave! It would be nice to have a couple of weeks under the sun before travelling from the northern hemisphere winter to the southern hemisphere one - but having survived winter here in Blacksburg a Sydney winter will be a walk in the park!
Next we hear from Janindu will be from the heart and heat of the competition 16 - 18 March.