Programmer
We are designing and implementing a Quad Rotor VTOL AMAV, Vertical Take Off and Landing Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicle. Essentially, we are building a robotic helicopter that will be able to fly inside buildings autonomously.
Our design will be available to the public as we hope to make it a solid platform for robotic enthusiasts, as well as professionals.
My primary role in the group is to implement the developer tools, graphical user interface, wireless communication protocol, and the multiprocessor communication bus.
I wrote the graphical user interface using Processing which is based on Java. I implemented the ability to share telemetry over the Ethernet. It can also accept instructions of the Ethernet and then relayed to the AMAV. Everything runs in real time while also saving all telemetry files in Excel compatible files. I also wrote some OpenGL applications to show what the sensors are seeing in real time.
Our wireless network is uses the Zigbee protocol and I implemented the data packet structure for transferring data between the AMAV and the PC. I implemented error checking code in order to prevent the AMAV from accepting data haphazardly in a noisy environment.
