History

The Road to TriClops

　If I just state the result outright, it might seem like I achieved it all at once, but that’s not the case. It’s the result of a long process of trial and error, involving repeated meticulous work and experimentation. While some of it has faded into oblivion, I’m doing my best to recall as much as possible and document it.

Timeline

  • 2026
    Motor Replacement
    　October: Replaced with a 150 rpm motor
    RVCS
    　August: Implemented for uConsole
    TriClops
    　July: Official Raspberry Pi Camera Used for Live Streaming During Flight; Oak D-Lite Features a Three-Camera Configuration for Machine Vision
    Alt-FW Modifications
    　April: Nidec 24H, Support for IMU-BNO055, Implementation of Position and Velocity Servos
    Frame Improvements
    　February: Step Created by an L-Shaped Bracket
    BLDC-Nidec24H
    　January: BLDC Motor Evaluation

  • 2025
    Motor Driver Update
    　December: Switched from L298N to TB6612. Making them pin-compatible was a hassle.
    PiSugar3
    　June: Transition to Mobile Power
    Oak D-Lite
    　May: Video Streaming for Flight Control via UVC Conversion
    ROCK
    February: With the rise of AI, even the old-timers have become capable of developing web apps using JavaScript.

  • 2024 Control via WinMax2
    　March: Road Test Using WinMax2

  • -2023-2022
    Development Hiatus

  • 2021
    Adoption of the Jetson Nano
    　September: Building a Bike with 100mm Wheels

  • 2020
    Control in JupyterLab
    　July: Controlled the system via Wi-Fi using a game controller connected to the host PC. Since my web app skills aren’t up to par, I was just making do with JupyterLab. I conducted an experiment with a stereo camera.
    Alt-FW Contributions
    　June: Donation of FA-grade firmware for Groovy-PID and Quatro from S.Y.
    Request for I2C Implementation
    　April: Requested S.Y. to implement this

  • 2019
    Groovy-Quatro
    　October: Release
    Groovy-PID
    　April: Release
    Evaluation of a Motor Controller Board Capable of PI/PID Control
    　I bought a few that looked promising and tested them, but none of them were quite up to par. So I decided to build my own.

  • Around 2018
    H-Bridge with FETs
    　I built an H-bridge using Renesas FETs (I used to work there, after all!) and used PWM signals from a PIC to drive the motor. The original design called for controlling the motor using a control voltage from a DAC, but since the control couldn’t keep up, I decided to use a motor controller connected via UART instead.