Mar19

• Looked how missions are saved into text files
• Best to just use mission planner to make missions
• Found best way to calibrate and tune autopilot with plane
• Follow the steps found on  http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/StartingArduPilotMega but use  "fly by wire" mode

Mar18

• Worked on making simulator work 
• Went through these steps:
• Put in "stabilize mode" and manually stabilized the plane in simulator
• Saw where the autopilot pulled the plane
• Turns out just needed to check "Reverse Pitch" check box
• Went through stabilize, loiter, and full autopilot modes and everything worked.

Mar9

• Kept looking into why autopilot makes simulation plane crash instead of going to waypoints
• From video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAfx6jsxNQ ), create waypoints and mission before take off and write them to board
• Noticed that when the plane is in autonomous mode, it acts the same as before we calibrated it on the R/C controller
• Edit to 3/7 Notes:
• Autopilot control is "Gear" on receiver for DX5e controller
• Created waypoints and mission, wrote to board - still FAILURE
• Could not come up with a solution by the end of the day, possibly has something to do with the Mission Planner not reading the orientation of the plane correctly, therefore it cannot fly the plane correctly.  Although, the APM is displaying the orientation and other sensor data correctly.  Must keep looking into this...
• Looking at ArduPlane 2.28 code in Arduino, maybe try loading modified version with HIL in it to plane. Uses:
• #define HIL_MODE           HIL_MODE_SENSORS
• Documentation says that you can't use this if using HIL_PROTOCOL_XPLANE
• Still no solution found...

Mar8

• Confirmed Telemetry working with MultiSerialMega firmware found on telemetry page of diydrones.com
• Loaded Arduplane HIL v2.28 from APM Mission Planner
• Currently can control Rudder, Aileron, and elevator
• Had to go to Settings->Joystick, Keys & Equipment to make sure throttle was calibrated properly
• Also when doing Settings->Data Input & Output, make sure that the only check boxes checked are the ones described on the diydrones website
• Still working on autopilot taking over, currently just crashes when in autopilot mode

Mar7

• Tried to get the Flight Gear Simulator to work, not enough support for it by diydrones
• Had trouble uploading the HIL Simulator APM to the board (green plane in display), not showing up in my APM planner sofwtware
• watched youtube videos of the APM Planner working side by side with the X Plane simulator, seems to be the best simulator to use.  Demo version is free.  Users have gotten it to work with Demo version.
• Notebook has basic layout of simulator
• Had problem with most recent version of "relaxpatch" for arduino, problem fixed with version before that.
• Simulation Basic Layout

• Autopilot Basic Hookups
• Out 1 - Aileron/Rudder or Elevon Servo
• Out 2 - Elevator or Elevon Servo
• Out 3 - Aircraft ESC
• Out 4 - Rudder Servo
• In 1 - Roll/Aileron (RC Receiver)
• In 2 - Pitch/Elevator  (RC Receiver)
• In 3 - Throttle  (RC Receiver)
• In 4 - Yaw/Rudder  (RC Receiver)
• In 8 - Autopilot Control  (RC Receiver)
• (GPS, airspeed, and telemetry already connected to ports)

Mar1

Soldered together telemetry units (picked up 2/29)
plugged in ground station unit, recognized on COM4
could not connect initially
Downloaded X-CTU (xBee program to reprogram them)
Have to set baud rate on units to 57608
Could not do this because of soldering error
Broke unit that is in aircraft, have to get new part